The Dead of Winter Part 3

"Pardon?" Torchholder was watching the half drunk Sacred Bander closely, looking for some sign. "We can do whatever the G.o.d demands, and we know you are pious and well disposed to-"

"Enlil," Niko interrupted firmly. "Gotta have a G.o.d around here, so I'm making it plain: Mine's Enlil, when I need one. Which is as infrequently as possible."

Stealth's hand went to his belt and Torchholder froze in place.

But Niko only patted his weaponbelt and brought the hand back to the table, where he propped his chin on it. "Weapons'11 do me, mosttimes. Other times ..."

The Sacred Bander leaned forward. "You any good at fighting witches? I've got a friend I'd like to get out of one's clutches ..."

Torchholder made a warding sign with practiced fluency before his face. "We'd like to show you something, Nikodemos called-"

"Ssh!" Niko said with exaggerated care, and looked around, right and left, before leaning forward to whisper. "Don't call me that. Not here. Not ever. I'm just visiting. I can't stay. Too much magic. Hurts, you know. Dead partners that aren't dead. Ex-partners that aren't ex.... Very confusing-"

"We know, we know," soothed the priest with wicked eyes. "We're here to help you sort it out. Come with us and-"

"Who's we?" Niko wanted to know, but two of Molin's cohort already had him by the armpits. They lifted the only mildly protesting fighter up and eased him out the door to where a carriage with ivory screens was waiting and, after some little difficulty, boosted him inside and closed the door.

Niko, who'd been abducted more than once in his life, expected the carriage to jerk and horses to lunge and to be carried off into the night. He also expected to fight being bound hand and foot. And he expected to be alone in there, after that, or at least alone but for the company of guards.

None of his expectations came to pa.s.s. Before him, on the other side of the carriage, were two children, one on either side of a harried looking woman who might once have been beautiful and whom Niko, who liked women, vaguely recalled: a temple dancer. The two children were hardly more than babes, but one of them, the fair-haired, sat right up and clapped his little hands.

And the sound of those hands clapping rang in Niko's ears like the thunder of the G.o.d Vashanka, like the Storm G.o.d's own lightning that seemed to issue from the childish mouth as the boy began to giggle in joy.

Niko sat back, slouched against the opposite corner of the wagon, and said, "What the ... ?"

And though the child was now just a child again, another, deeper voice, rang in the Stepson's head, saying, Look on Me, favorite of the Riddler, and take word back to your leader that I am come again. And that 1 would take advantage of all you have to give before the little world that is thine suffers unto perishing.

The boy from whose mouth the words could not have issued was saying, "Sowdier?

Hewo? Make fwiends? Fwiends? Take big ride? Water pwace? Soon? Me want go soon!"

Niko, stone sober, sat up, looked at the woman sharply and then nodded politely, as he hadn't before. "You're that one's mother? That temple dancer-Seylalha, the First Consort who bore Vashanka's child." It wasn't really a question; the woman didn't bother to answer.

Niko leaned forward, toward the two children, the darker of whom had his thumb in his mouth and regarded Niko with round black eyes. The fair child smiled beatifi-cally. "Soon?" the boy said, though it was too young a child to be discussing anything as sensitive as Niko knew it was.

He said, "Soon, if you're worthy, boy. Pure in heart. Honorable. Loving of life all life. It won't be easy. I'll have to get permission. And you've got to control-what's inside you. Or they won't have you in Bandara, no matter how they care for me."

"Good," said the fair child, or maybe just "Goo"; Niko wasn't sure.

These were toddlers, the both. Too young and, if Niko's maat was right and a G.o.d had chosen one as His repository, too dangerous. Niko said to the woman, "Tell the priests I'll do what I can. But he must be taught restraint. No child can control his temper at that age. Both of them, then, must be prepared."

And he pushed on the wagon's door, which opened and let the sobered fighter out into the blessedly cold and normal Sanctuary night.

Normal, except for the presence of Molin Torchholder and the little scribbler, whom the priest held by the collar. "Nikodemos, look at this," said the priest without preamble as if Niko were now his ally-which, so far as Stealth was concerned, he indubitably was not.

Still, the picture that the scribbler, who was protesting that he had a right to do as he willed, had scribed was odd: It was of Niko, but with Tempus looking over his shoulder and both of them seemed to be enfolded in the wings of a dark angel who looked altogether too much like Roxane.

"Leave the picture, artist, and go your way." It was Niko's order, but Torchholder let go of the bandy-legged limner, who hurried off without asking when or if he'd get his artwork back.

"That's my problem ... that picture. Forget you've seen it. Yours, if you want what the G.o.d wants, is to get those children schooled where they can be disciplined-by Bandaran adepts."

"What makes you a.s.sume I want any such-"

"Torchholder, don't you know what you've got there? More trouble than Sanctuary can handle. Infants-one infant, anyhow-with a G.o.d in him. With the power of a G.o.d. A Storm G.o.d. Can you reason out the rest?"

Torchholder muttered something about things having gone too far.

Niko retorted, "They're not going any further unless and until my partner Randal-who's being held by Roxane, I hear tell-is returned to me unharmed. Then I'll ride up and ask Tempus what he wants to do-if anything-about the matter of the G.o.dchild you so cavalierly visited upon a town that had troubles enough without one. But one way or the other, the resolution isn't going to help you one whit. Get my meaning?"

The architect-priest winced and his face screwed up as if he'd tasted something sour. "We can't help you with the witch, fighter-not unless you want simple manpower."

"Good enough. As long as it's priest-power." And Niko began giving orders that Torchholder had no alternative but to obey.

On the dawn of the shortest day of the year, Niko had still not come back to Roxane.

It was time to make an end to Randal, whom she despised enough-almost-to make the slight dealt her by the mortal whom she'd consented to love less stinging.

Almost, but not quite. If witches could cry, Roxane would have shed tears of humiliation and of unrequited love. But a witch shouldn't be crying over mortals, and Roxane was reconst.i.tuted from the weakness that had beset her during the Wizard Wars. If Niko wouldn't come to her, she'd make him notorious in h.e.l.l for all the lonely souls his faithless, f.e.c.kless self-interest had sent there.

She was just getting the snakes to put aside the card game and fetch the mage when hoofbeats sounded upon her cart-track drive.

Wroth and no longer hopeful, she s.n.a.t.c.hed aside the curtain, though the day was bright and clear as winter days can be, with a sky of powder blue and horsetail clouds. And there, amazingly, was Niko, on a big sable horse of the sort that only Askelon bred in Meridian, his panoply agleam as it came within orb of all her magic.

So she had to shut down her wards and go outside to greet him, leaving Randal half unbound with only the snakes to guard him.

Still, it was sweeter than she'd thought it could be, when anger had consumed her-ecstasy just to see him.

He'd shaved. His boyish face was smiling. He rode up to her and slipped off his horse, cavalry style, and slapped its rump. "Go home, horse, to your stable," he told it, then told her, "I won't need him here, I'm sure."

Here. Then he was staying. He understood. But he'd not done anything she'd asked.

So she said, "And Janni? What of the soul of your poor partner? How can you leave him with Ischade-that wh.o.r.e of darkness? How can you-"

"How can you torture Randal?" Niko said levelly, taking a step closer to Roxane, hands empty and out stretched. "It makes it so hard for me to do this. Can't you-for my sake, won't you let him go? Unharmed. Unensorceled. Free of even the taint of hostile magic."

As he spoke, he pulled her against him gently until she pushed back, fearful of the burns his armor could inflict. "If you'll get rid of that-gear," she bargained, trying to keep her hackles from rising. He should know better than to come to her armored with protections forged by the entelechy of dream. Stupid boy. He was beautiful but dumb, pure, but too innocent to be as canny as his smile portended.

She waved a hand behind her. "Done." And as she spoke, a howl of rage and triumph issued from inside and something, with a crash, came bursting out the window.

Niko gazed after Randal as the mage ran, full-tilt, into the bushes. He nodded.

"Now it's just the two of us, is that it?"

"Well ..." she temporized, "there are my snakes, of course." She was primping up her beauty in a way he couldn't see, letting her young and girlish simulacrum come forward, easing the evil and the danger in her face and form. By all she revered, did she love this boy with his hazel eyes so clear and his quiet soul.

By all she held sacred, the feel of his hand on her back as he ushered her into her own house in gentlemanly fashion was unlike the touch of any man or mage she'd ever known.

She wanted only to keep him. She sent away the snakes, having to discorporate one who objected that she would then be defenseless, open to attack by man or G.o.d.

"Take that silly armor off, beloved, and we'll have a bath together," she murmured, preparing to spell water, hot and steaming, in her gold-footed tub.

And when she turned again, he'd done that and stood before her, hands out to strip her clothes away, and his body announced its intention to make her welcome.

Welcome her he did, in hot water and hot pa.s.sion, until, amid the moment of her joy and just before she was about to begin a rune to claim his soul forever, a commotion began outside her door.

First it was lightning that rocked her to her foundations, then thunder, then the sound of many running feet and chanting priests as all Vashanka's priesthood came tramping up her cart-track, battle-streamers on their standards and horns to blow the eardrums out of evil to their lips.

He was as nonplussed as she. He held her in his arms and pressed her close, telling her, "Don't worry, I'll take care of them. You stay here, and call back all your minions-not that I don't think I can protect you, but just in case."

She watched him dress hurriedly, strapping on his armor over wet skin, and run outside, his weapons at hand and ready.

No mortal had ever come to her defense before. So when, snakes by her side and undeads rising, she saw them wrestle him to the ground, disarm him, put him in a cage (no doubt the cage they'd meant for her) and drive away with him, she wept for Niko, who loved her but had been taken from her by the hated priesthood.

And she planned revenge-not only upon the priesthood, but upon Ischade, the trickster necromant, and Randal, who should never have been allowed to get away, and on all of Sanctuary-all but Niko, who was innocent of all and who, if only he could have stayed a little longer, would have proclaimed in his own words his love for her and thus become hers forevermore.

As for the rest-now there would be h.e.l.l to pay.

THE VEILED LADY.

OR.

A LOOK AT THE NORMAL FOLK.

Andrew Qffutt

The veiled lady traveled to Sanctuary with the caravan that originated in Suma and had grown at Aurvesh. She was faceless behind the deeply slate blue arras or veil that backed the white one. It covered her head like a miniature tent, held in place by a cloth chaplet of interwoven white and slate. In her Sumese drover's robe of grayish, off-white woolen homespun, the veiled lady was not quite shapeless; she appeared to be either fat or with child. True, others often scarf-m.u.f.fled their lower faces against the cold, but the point was that the veiled woman never, never showed her face above the eyebrows and below her large medium-hued eyes.

Naturally the caravanseers and her fellow pilgrims wondered, and speculated, and opined and discussed. An innocent child and a rude adult-or-nearly were actually so crude as to ask her why she was hiding behind a veil and all that loose robe.

"Oh my cute little dear," the veiled lady told the child, cupping its plump dark cheek with a nice and quite pretty hand, "it's the sun. It makes me break out all in green warts. Wouldn't that be awful to have to look at?"

No such touch accompanied the veiled lady's response to the rude almost-woman who breached the bounds of gentility and mannered decency by asking the same question.

"Pox," the veiled lady said tersely. The questioner, while bereft of the sensitivity to blush or even apologize, said no more. Eyes widening, she abruptly remembered that her presence was required elsewhere.

(The first "explanation" was pooh-poohed, though not directly to the veiled one; if that were so, a fellow pilgrim wisely observed, then why were her hands not gloved, and why were they so pretty-a lady's hands? The second explanation was considerably more troubling. It was suspect, but who wanted to take a chance on catching some pox or other? People began to keep their distance, just in case.) The big good-looking guard from Mrsevada was rude, too, but in a different way.

He knew what flashing those good big teeth in that handsome face would get him.

It had got him plenty, and would again. Having a.s.sured his comrades that he would soon bring them the answer, he addressed her with c.o.c.ky confidence.

"Whatcha hiding under all them robes and veil, sweets?"

"A syphilitic face and a pregnant belly," the faceless woman told him. "Want to visit me in my tent tonight?"

"Uh-I uh, no, I was just-"

"And what are you hiding behind that totally phony smile, swordsman?"

He blinked and the dazzling smile faded away in patches, like the dissipating of those fluffy white clouds that signify nothing.

"You have a sharp tongue, pregnant and syphilitic."

"That," she told him, "is true. You can understand that I don't like men with winning smiles ..."

The handsome guardsman went away.

After that, no one asked her questions. Furthermore, the guardsmen, her fellow travelers, and the caravanseers not only left her alone, but indeed shunned the veiled woman-who after all could surely be no lady ... !

She had paid her way-the full charge, too-without argument or complaint and with only the modic.u.m of d.i.c.kering that showed her to be human, though not .arrogant.

(Most n.o.bles showed their arrogance either by stating their own price and paying it-usually less than what could be considered fair. Others at once paid what was asked, so as to show that they were far too well off and n.o.ble to d.i.c.ker with mere clerks and caravan masters or booking stewards.) She had brought her own water and foodstuffs. She stayed to herself and caused no trouble, while giving others something to talk about. She was no trouble at all.

The tall caravan master, his gray-shot beard and easy confidence reminders of his experience, did not believe that she was syphilitic, or pocked, or sun cursed, or pregnant either. Nor did he view her as sinister merely because she refused to show her face. Thus Caravan Master Eliab was not pleasant to the little delegation of three women and the prideless husband of one of them, when they came to demand that the veiled person reveal and identify herself on the grounds that she was mysterious and therefore sinister and Frightening The Children.

Master Eliab looked down upon them, literally and figuratively. "Point out to me those children who are affrighted of the Lady Saphtherabah," he said, making up an impressive name for in truth she had signed on with him simply as "Cleya," a name common in Suma, "and I shall make them forget her by giving them something else to be fearful of."

"Hmp. And what might that be. Caravan Master?"

"ME!" he bellowed, and he transformed his bushily bearded face into a fearful scowl. At the same time he swept out the curved sword from his worn paisley patterned sash. Curling his other hand into a claw, he pounced at them.

He took only the one big lunging step, but the members of the delegation took many. Squealing and worse, four disunited individuals fled his company.

When Eliab arose next morning-with the sun, of course-it was to find that the veiled lady had prepared breakfast for him from her own stores and was calmly sharpening his dagger.

"Thank you, Lady," the big caravan master said, with a bow almost courtly.

"Thank you, Caravan Master."

"And will you join me in breaking the night's fasting with this wonderful repast. Lady?"

"No, Caravan Master," she said, rising. "For I could not eat without showing you my face."

"I understand, Lady. And thank you again." He made a respectful sign and watched her glide away, robe's hem on the ground and cloak whipping in the wind that blew worse than chilly, to her own tent. After that he a.s.signed a man to pitch and strike that tent for her. Thus the delegation obtained some result, at that.

At last the cavalcade of humans, beasts, and trade goods reached the tired town called Sanctuary, and the veiled lady detached her three horses and went her way into the dusty old "city." The others saw her no more and soon she was completely out of their thoughts. Neither the big good-looking guard from Mrsevada nor Master Eliab ever forgot her, really, but she slipped easily from their minds, too. The former began flashing his smile and cutting a swath through the girls of Sanctuary, if not the women. As a matter of fact none of them had seen her and so never saw her again or knew if they did, for the veiled lady soon unveiled herself.

In this moribund town of thieves now ruled by weird starey-eyed people or "people" from oversea and un-succored by "protecting" and "Imperial" Ranke, it was easy for the veiled lady to employ a lackey for a few coins and a promise or two. Next she startled and nearly whelmed the poor wight by having him take her to his own home. Within that poorly heated hovel and amid much buzzing curiosity among the neighbors, she effected a change of clothing. That involved removal of all headgear and thus both veils. And that, when she emerged, elicited more buzz, even unto awe.

They were the first outside Suma to see the face and figure of her whose name was not Cleya or Saphtherabah, but Kaybe Jodeera.

She was blessed with beauty, true beauty. It was at once a blessing and a curse.