Darkness came early to the Pass, and to the little valley the Vredai occupied below it. Although the sky to the west was still bright red, the valley was dark enough that Halun occasionally stumbled over rocks and animal-dug hummocks in the grass. He had been sorry to give up holding his meetings with the others within the camp itself, but after the defection of those young hotheads it had just become too much of a risk. The little cul-de-sac side canyon that Iridai had found was a perfect meeting place; no one could overhear or overlook them, and with one man standing guard at the entrance, no one could get near enough to the meeting to even see who was taking part in it.
Gortan and Iridai had learned from the mistakes of the youngsters; the guard they'd posted didn't look like he was guarding anything at all. He was sitting on a horse-blanket under the stone outcropping that half hid the entrance. He had a torch beside him, and was playing a solitaire game of stones by the light of it. As Halun passed him, he looked up, grunted once, and went back to his game. And if Halun had not been someone known to him, there would have been no strongarm techniques—just a friendly skin of khmass and an invitation to make up a two-game. And since "stones" was a fairly boring game, it was unlikely that the intruder would stop for more than a drink or two.
There were dozens of folks scattered up and down the length of the valley this warm summer night. Some had minor hand-tasks that still needed work, and some weren't yet ready to sleep, and it was too hot to stay in the tents with any kind of flame going. Others were doing things that required a little more privacy than the closely crowded tents allowed, especially with their sides up. This guard wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary, to be out here alone.
The gathering itself had only a single source of light: a pocket-sized fire in the middle of the circle of nomads. As Halun approached, the dark faces looked up sharply, eyes flashing with reflected firelight. Then, silently, they made a place for him in the circle. He tossed the cushion he'd been carrying under one arm into the vacated spot, and eased himself down onto it, ignoring the stares. At least there didn't seem to be any derision there; while no else had brought a cushion to sit on, his age and silver hair were at least giving him a reason to do so himself.
Silence then, until the last of the group—Iridai—arrived. Halun found the silence somewhat unnerving. Crickets singing with all their might out in the grass beyond the firelight only punctuated the silence; they did not break it. Nor did the crackle of the fire. There was a tension tonight that there had not been during previous meetings. Halun fidgeted inside, but gave no outward sign of his restlessness. If they wanted to play this kind of stone-faced game, he would play it too, and outplay all of them.
Finally Iridai arrived, and dropped down into his place in the circle.
Gortan cleared his throat. "We are ready," he said simply.
Halun inhaled sharply, and got a lungful of resinous smoke; he suppressed his need to cough with an effort that left him struggling to breathe for a few moments.
"We, too, are ready," Iridai replied. "The tide of condemnation of the rebels has turned, and now folk wonder openly why Jegrai had them slain out of hand. There is restlessness among the young warriors, those who have not gone courting Vale-folk women, and they wonder how one can achieve wealth, fame, and prowess when one cannot raid nor fight. The games and hunting begin to be not enough. My chosen ones are ready to lead them into opposing Jegrai and setting up a new Khene."
Gortan nodded, and all eyes turned to Halun. He felt them more than saw them, like the pressure of a warm breeze on his skin.
"We need to manufacture an incident," he said, laying out before them the plan he had made. "We need Jegrai to make some kind of very obvious mistake—yes, and Felaras, too."
Gortan nodded. "And then we use those mistakes to rouse anger?"
"Exactly. I had one such incident in the brewing, but I lost the man to a fall the night of the storm."
"That would be the man Zetren? The one who fell from the wall?" Iridai asked shrewdly, evidently hoping to impress Halun with his intelligence network.
Halun was not impressed, mostly because half of the Vredai spying on the Fortress were Halun's already, and the rest soon would be. "Exactly. I don't know what he was doing out there in the middle of a storm, but it appears to have been a genuine accident."
"Are you certain, wise one?" Gortan asked dubiously, leaning forward a little.
"Reasonably certain. Felaras has nothing at all to gain by hiding the fact if he did make a failed attempt on her—Zetren was not well liked, and she would likely get a great deal of sympathy from it." Halun wasn't near as certain as he sounded, but he had to give these barbarians some assurances. "As I am certain you have learned, Felaras actually slipped and fell at the beginning of the storm—she was evidently in her bed and drugged against the pain of her injury when Zetren went out on the walls. I cannot see how she could have had anything to do with his death."
He shrugged then, dismissing the whole thing. "The man was half-crazed, and was quite devoted to the defense of the Order. My guess would be that he decided some of you were likely to try something under cover of the storm, and climbed up to watch for attackers. That section of the wall does face on the area from which an attack could be expected."
Gortan nodded his acceptance of the story. "Well then—how do we 'manufacture' this incident?"
"There are among you a handful who have been passed over when the Shaman, Northwind, made his selection of those he would train." Halun looked at the swarthy faces in the flickering firelight, and noted the expressions of discontent on several of them. "I have tested you, and found those of you with wizard-power. I have been instructing you in its use. Now we will use it; all together, and together we will be a force truly to be reckoned with. Half of us will concentrate on Felaras, and half on Jegrai. I have no doubt that we will meet with success."
Gortan nodded, his expression one of smug self-satisfaction. "And we will be waiting for the mistake that must come?"
"Indeed," Halun replied, "We will be waiting."
The Pass was cooler than the valley—and Felaras could just barely hobble from her bed to her study, anyway. So Northwind and Jegrai were up here tonight, with detailed maps spread on the desk top, and herself and Ardun standing for the Order on her side of the desk.
She would have preferred Zorsha, but the lad was in the throes of creation—and with this particular creation, she'd as soon have him finished with it in the shortest possible time. It was something of a symbol to him; a symbol of his promise to Yuchai. Nothing was going to keep him from working on those canisters of that vile fire-stuff until the project was complete and ready to turn over to the munitions specialists for manufacture. He said he was on the verge of finding the way to seal the stuff in without setting it afire in the process, or making the canister so fragile it would break open in the act of being fired. If he was close to a breakthrough, best to let him be. Best to have that stuff out of the Fortress workrooms and back into the munitions sheds. As it was, he wasn't using his own workroom, or even one of the bigger, common workrooms. He had taken over an older workroom, the lower floor of part of the oldest part of the Fortress; one of the original stone towers in the north corner of the wall, small and cramped and drafty, and not much used by anyone for anything but storage these days. But Zorsha had not liked the notion of working with the fire where anyone else might be endangered, and Felaras had agreed with him. So the rubbish that had been put away there had been cleaned out, and Zorsha had moved his own instruments and tools in.
"So, you think the Talchai will come in through this way?" Ardun said, interrupting Felaras's thoughts. He traced a line on the map with his index finger, a line that did not follow the course of any of the roads across Azgun, but rather moved along the line of a fairly prominent ridge.
Kasha made a little movement and caught Felaras's eye. She made a subtle hand-sign: Somebody's ill-wishing again.
Felaras lowered her barriers. Strong. Damn. And this is not time for us to be distracted. Not only that, but we daren't take the time to do a proper deflection and send it back into their laps.
She caught the Shaman's eye and repeated the sign Kasha had made. He tightened his mouth, closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and gave a little nod in Jegrai's direction.
Wonderful. They're targeting the Khene, too.
She clasped her hands together; the Shaman considered, then nodded. In a heartbeat she could feel his shield meshing with hers—and his had the "feel" of more than one person.
Of course; he has Demonsbane, and whatever other shamans-in-training there are down at the camp, and probably all the Healer-women too—
Together they tightened a dome of protection over the Khene and Felaras herself that not even a sending that strong could breach. It would only bounce—and gods help whomever it hit.
Jegrai nodded, oblivious to the magic going on over his head. "I tell you my reasoning: first, there are many towns along this way, not too large, not too small, suitable for raiding. Like us, they will take what they need from those along their path. Second, they will be uncomfortable with the hills towering above them; we had some time to grow used to this, but Sen will be pushing them, they will be an army rather than a Clan with children, the old, and the ill to slow them, so they likely will not learn to ignore the hills about them. So they will move to the highest point in the land, not thinking that this will make them very visible. Being visible has never been a factor in our kind of battle; on the steppes one can see for many days' travel in all directions—one can see the approaching army long before it reaches one."
Ardun considered the route. "You know, if we wanted to move into Azgun, we could ambush them at dozens of places along their path, and weaken them considerably at very little cost to ourselves."
Felaras shook her head. "No good; our diplomatic relationship with the lords has never been all that healthy and bringing an army of our own will only make it worse. Especially an army of yet more nomads. No, much as I'd like to, sending in -ambushers is out of the question. Now, working on their minds—that's something else altogether."
Northwind looked up at her, his sharp eyes catching hers across the map. "How so, their minds?"
"Oh, well, an elaboration of the 'great wizards' show we put on for you," she said wishing her knee wasn't aching so persistently. "Consider: you people don't fight at night, correct?"
"Correct," Jegrai replied, plainly wondering what she was getting at. They didn't fight at night because fighting on horseback when the horses couldn't see was worse than stupid, it was courting suicide.
But fighting wasn't what she had in mind. "So, figure the Talchai are all bedded down for the night—not asleep yet, but settled in. Suddenly the skies fill with thunder and fire, and weirdly colored lightning, and when it passes, their attention is directed to the ridge beneath where the lightnings were. Because up on the ridge directly above the camp there's a flash of light. When they can see again, there are half-a-dozen Vredai riders with the Running Horse banner—and they're all glowing. What would they think?"
"That ghosts had come to haunt them," Northwind replied positively.
"Then the skies open up again, and there's another flash of light, and the riders are gone. Say this gets repeated, at irregular intervals." She grinned. "Like overcast nights, or nights with no moon, but I'd bet they don't make the connection."
"Sen would probably be able to convince them that these were demons, which would make them certain that they were in the right, but that would not keep them from being terrified," Northwind observed shrewdly. "We have too many tales where the demons are the ones who win. You can do all this?"
She shrugged. I need to take a pain-potion, and I need to stay awake. Gods, what a choice. Guess I'll stay awake. "It's fairly easy, actually. We already have the fireworks, we use them at festivals. The phosphor is easy enough to get. Slimy stuff, but glows very nicely after dark. Getting the riders in place without being seen is not any kind of a problem—cover them with blankets and move them in while the sky is lighting up, reverse the process when you're ready. We could even supply some fairly weird noises, but I personally think that silence would be more effective."
Jegrai grinned ferally. "This will destroy their will," he said positively, "and Sen will be able to do nothing. So; where do we actually meet them?"
"Well, now, that depends on you, Khene," Felaras said slowly. "It depends on whether or not you want them to have the option of escape."
"How so?"
Felaras looked over to Ardun, who cleared his throat to get their attention. "Well, we can meet them either on the other side of the river, or just below the Teeth. If we hold them on the Azgun side, there's a good chance that once we get Sen—that is the plan, isn't it? Take out their Khene?"
"Yes," Jegrai replied. "Without him they will have no will to fight"
"All right, then; once we do that, they'll likely turn tail and run rather than surrender. After what they did to you folks, they aren't going to be expecting any kind of mercy out of you. But if we hold them at the Teeth, the river will be behind them and they won't have that option."
"Which means that they will fight like any cornered thing," Northwind observed. "This could be very bad for us, for we could sustain many losses. Yet—"
"Yet there is no small number of you who feel like Yuchai," Ardun replied dryly. "You want them destroyed, root and branch."
"Jegrai, I'm going to ask you to do something that would be hard even for one of my people, trained as they are in logical thinking," Felaras said wearily. "Certainly it's beyond Zorsha at the moment, and you and he are of an age—but I think you can do this. Look at the situation logically, and analyze it. Think of it as a problem in tactics, and not as if your heart were involved in it."
Jegrai did not look happy—but he did look thoughtful, which was a good sign.
"What is it you really want to do here?" Ardun asked. "Define your goals. Do you just want Vredai safe? Do you want Vredai safe and Talchai so demoralized they'll be out of the politics of the steppes for your lifetime? Do you want that, and to follow up on the gap they're going to leave behind? Or do you have another goal altogether?"
"If I were to have all my wishes?" Jegrai asked, face puzzled, and a little confused.
"Exactly; Khene Jegrai, assume that you know that the Wind Lords themselves have just luck-wished you. What do you plan to do with all that good fortune?"
He studied the map; if gazes had held power, he'd have burned holes in the paper.
"It is not the Talchai," he said slowly, each word falling like a stone into the silence. "It is not even Sen who is the root of our troubles. It is the Suno. They began it. Until they meddled, it was a rare thing for one of the people to spill so much as a drop of a brother's blood."
Northwind nodded, but said nothing.
"If Sen were gone—if we were to let loose upon the warriors your fire-throwers, or even that terrible Sabirn-fire of which you have spoken, the Talchai would run, if they could. If they ran, they would carry back to the steppes the word that Vredai has the powers of gods—or demons, it truly does not matter which. They would hide themselves, lick their wounds, I think—and I hope reflect on how none of this would have occurred had they not given ear to their Khene and his dishonorable plans to war against the helpless."
"Fine, to a point," Northwind said. "And Vredai is then safe. But there are those who would miss their half-breed warhound, eh?"
"The Suno." Jegrai took his eyes off the map and looked over at his advisor. "Which means—" He paused, and shook his head. "I do not know what it means. I cannot say what they will do."
"I can think of things they might," Northwind said, leaning his weight on his arms so that the desk creaked a little. "They might look to the Clans for another half-breed wardog, or even breed another themselves. They might try to simply corrupt another Khene. Certainly they will not act upon this themselves, sending an army out to find Vredai. But that does not mean they will leave the Clans in peace. They will do no such thing. We are too much of a threat to them."
"All wishes granted, Jegrai," Felaras prompted. "Think in the long term."
"I should like—to unite the Clans, as Sen tried," he said, eyes shining as he looked into his own dreams and picked out the best of what lay there. "But in honor, under true alliance and pledges to be trusted. And allowing those who would not come to go their own path. Then—I should like to take this war the Suno began upon us back to their own hearth."
"I think you've just answered the question about where we meet them," Ardun said, standing up with a sigh and stretching his back. They could all hear his back pop, so quiet was the study.
"Huh. Indeed. On the other side of the river, and let as many escape as we may, once Sen is no more." Jegrai looked across to Felaras, doubt shadowing his face. "Can we do this, Master? Even your folk and mine together?"
"We can try," she shrugged. "It's no more foolish a plan than Khene Sen's, and one with a great deal more concern for the well-being of everyone involved. My only question is, can you persuade your people to the first step?"
"Letting the Talchai go? I think so," he replied. "I must point out to them that to serve them as they served us is no less without honor—and to send them back with their tails tucked in will show every Clan on the steppes that Vredai will not be trifled with." He quirked one corner of his mouth in a half-smile. "Between maintaining honor, and being able to send the Talchai running in fear, I think I can persuade them to the task."
Felaras was considering what to say next, when the room shook with a roar that was not thunder.
"What in—" Ardun shouted, startled.
Felaras knew there was only thing that could be—and given the ill-wishing going on and how close he was to her—
"Gods!" She threw her cane aside and ran, limping, for the door, urgency overriding pain. "Oh, gods! Zorsha!"
The calm of the warm night splintered.
Halun had just reached the side of his tent when the roar of the explosion at the top of the mountain destroyed the peace of the night. He jumped a foot, and grabbed a rope tent-support for balance as his eyes went immediately to the crack between the peaks where the invisible Fortress sat beside the road through the Pass. A tower of yellow-gold flame rose from there, reaching upward like a demon's arm in the silence that followed the explosion for one breath—two—
Then it collapsed back down, leaving only an ugly red blotch reflecting against the rocks of the peak above the Fortress to show that the fire still burned.
Halun's heart lurched into his throat and stayed there, and he clutched the tent-rope so hard it cut into his palm.
Gods—did I do—oh, gods, I must have!
He turned and ran back the way he had come, only thinking I have to get back up there! He reached the stabling area and stumbled for the picketed line of horses, arriving in time to see Teo and Mai tearing off up the road to the Pass on their own beasts. One of the Vredai—Thank the gods—had already anticipated him; incredible as it seemed, his horse was saddled and bridled and waiting with a young herder-girl holding the reins. He scrambled into the saddle somehow—she handed him the reins—and then he, too, spurred off into the smoke-tainted dark, following the others.
"Not water, you fools," Felaras shouted at the top of her lungs, limping toward the scene of the disaster. "Sand! That's Sabirn-fire!"
The fire crews were black blots against the red and yellow of the flames; unidentifiable. Those carrying buckets of water literally dropped them. Someone, bless his or her quick mind, ran like a thin shadow up to where the sand barrels were kept on the top of the wall against siege fires, and began rolling them right off the edge of the walkway to crash and break open at the feet of the fire-fighters. The fire crew stooped and scrambled after their dropped containers; the empty buckets were refilled with sand, and the fire-fighting continued with scarcely a pause.
Felaras clutched at Jegrai's shoulder, scarcely aware that she was doing so, and moaned. The little tower was wrecked; reduced to a heap of tumbled stones. The fire-fighters were getting the pockets of flame under control but—somewhere under that pile of rubble was Zorsha.
Or what—oh, gods—is left of him.
"Zorsha!" screamed a young voice behind them, and Yuchai darted out of the door in the wall and past them, heading straight for the wreckage.
Jegrai slid out from under Felaras's hand and sprinted like a champion foot-racer, reaching the boy before he even got close to the carnage, and tackling him.
They went down in a tangled heap of long limbs on the packed dirt of the courtyard; Yuchai tried to squirm away, but Jegrai kept a tight hold on him, shouting at him in their own tongue. All at once the boy capitulated, collapsing in Jegrai's arms and breaking into terrified sobbing.
The Khene got slowly to his feet and drew the boy up after him, holding him closely, then leading him back past Felaras.
"We can do nothing," he said as he passed her. "I will get the boy back to his bed; we will wait for word."
She nodded absently; the fire crew was doing a good job of smothering the blaze and even the thick smoke was being dispersed. Now most of the light in the back courtyard was coming from the torches and lanterns, not the fire itself.
Kasha came to take Jegrai's place as her support; her body was rigid beneath Felaras's hand, and she trembled. For that matter, Felaras herself was shaking from head to toe.
Oh gods, we should have thought of Zorsha—we should have thought and brought him under the protection too. But I was sure I'd taught him enough to deflect properly—and surely he realized that he'd have to keep a shield up when working with the fire!
Ardun strode past to take charge of the rescue crew—who were mostly Watchers, anyway. "Get those damned stones moved!" he was shouting. "No not those, those! No, no, you fool! Don't touch that support, you'll just start another fall of stone! Get the blocks off it first!"
There was nothing they could do but stand and watch—and hope.
Two horses galloped into the back court, followed by a third. The very first rider was Teo, easily identifiable because of his size; he flung himself out of the saddle, peeled off his tunic, and threw himself into the work crew all in one movement. His powerful young body made an immediate difference; he was able to get into places only big enough for a single man, and lift things from there that only a couple of the others would have been able to tackle. Tiny Mai was the second rider, had to be. The asexual shadow leapt from the horse and went straight to the bucket crew, taking the place of someone larger who was thus freed to join the rescuers.
Halun was the third rider, pulling his horse up beside Felaras and sliding off untidily.
"Who—" he panted.
"Zorsha," Felaras choked out. "He—he was working with Sabirn-fire."
Halun moaned and made as if to join one of the two crews. Kasha caught his sleeve and held him back.
"Not you, old man," she said in a dead, calm voice. "You're too old and out of shape. You'll only get in the way, or get yourself hurt."
As if to underscore her statement, Teo uncovered a pocket of the smoldering fire, which blazed up in his face. He jumped back in time to avoid more than a touch of the flames, and stood out of the way while a fire crew dealt with it.
When the flames were out he went right back in before the blocks of stone even had a chance to cool.
Boitan joined them, his arms and Shenshu's laden with supplies. "Is it only Zorsha?" he asked quietly.
"So far as I know," Felaras replied around her fear, ignoring Halun's groan. "He wouldn't let anyone else work with him; said it was too dangerous."
"What was he doing in there?" Halun demanded wildly; Felaras glanced over and saw that his face was contorted with fear, grief, and something she couldn't properly identify. "Felaras, what in hell did you set him to? What insanity possessed you to put him on Sabirn-fire?"
"Set him to?" Kasha choked. "Great good gods, Halun, she couldn't have stopped him if she'd tried! You've been living down there with those folk, haven't you even heard one story about what happened to them when the Talchai took their camp?"
Halun shook his head dumbly.
Kasha stared at him in profoundest amazement. "Zorsha got it all in the face from young Yuchai—and since then, all he's been interested in is a way to decimate the Talchai as badly as they did Jegrai's folk. That's why the Sabirn-fire, he was trying to work out a way to seal it into mortar-canisters—"
She was interrupted by a hoarse shout from Teo. "Here! I found him! He's under here!"
They surged forward in a body. Of them all, only Felaras had seen victims of Sabirn-fire; that had been long, long ago, when she was a bare novice.
She was dreading what Teo was likely to uncover.
Teo tore huge blocks from the pile by himself, flinging them to the side with frenzied strength. His face was contorted, and tears made runnels through the crust of ashes on his cheeks; his chest was smeared with ash and shining with sweat, and he looked like something out of the lowest hells.
In moments he had the little coffin-shaped area in which Zorsha was lying cleared of rubble. Felaras only got the barest glimpse of something dark and twisted—and it was moaning.
"Move, dammit!" Boitan snarled, shoving his way between the rescuers; Shenshu and Kasha behind him, carrying a board from the wreckage. "Here—gently—roll him over onto this—"
The moans spiraled up into harsh screams, and Felaras looked away. Into Halun's eyes. And she recognized what she saw there.
Guilt. Terrible, soul-searing guilt. But why?
She had no time to wonder about that, for the rescuers had gotten Zorsha out of the tumble of stone and down onto the courtyard, laying him practically at her feet. She went to her knees beside him, as someone brought Boitan a lantern in response to a snarled demand for light.
It was as bad as she'd feared.
He'd taken the raw fire-blast right in his face; his eyes were—gone. Just a charred swath where they had been. From head to waist, he looked like nothing so much as badly charred meat; his tunic had burned right away, and bits of it flaked off every time he moved. His hands didn't bear thinking about. There was bone showing.
She looked at Boitan, who caught her eye, and shook his head slowly.
Oh, gods—Her throat closed; she couldn't breathe. All she wanted to do was howl in agony.
A harsh whisper caught her attention, forced her to look back down at the thing at her feet that had been the handsomest lad in the Order.
"—aras—" the lips whispered again.
"I'm here," she said, leaning down, but not touching him. "I'm here, lad. So's Halun."
"—alun? Ah—" What was left of his face spasmed in pain, as Halun joined her, kneeling beside her, looking as if he wanted to gather the boy to his breast.
The mouth moved again. Gasping half-words through pain that must have been unbearable. "—alun.—elp—elaras. Got to. Help—elaras. Boy. Jegrai.—redai. Swear! "The charred travesties of hands pawed at the front of Halun's tunic. "Swear! Swear!"
Halun was sobbing as Felaras had never seen him weep in her life. "I promise. Oh, gods, Zorsha, I swear it, I swear—"
The lips almost seemed to smile. "I—love—you—all," he said, clearly, and carefully. Then, just as clearly, but cracking with anguish, "Help—me—go."
Boitan caught her eyes again; his face was wet, but the hands holding the long, thin mercy-blade were steady.
She looked briefly down—and as if he had sensed her eyes on him, Zorsha whispered. One word. "Please."
She choked, and nodded. Boitan moved so quickly she almost didn't see it happen. Zorsha surely was in such pain he never felt the keen-edged blade slip between his ribs and find his heart.
He just sighed once—then—he was gone.
Halun flung himself across the body and broke into hysterical, punishing sobs of grief.
Felaras unashamedly did the same.
The potion Boitan had given her had numbed her physical pain, and had put some distance between her and her sorrow. But the grief was still there, a constant that filled her throat with tears and would not let her sleep. She gave up tossing on her bed after too many hours of staring at the ceiling, and lit a candle to stare at instead.
Now the candle was guttering out, and birds were hailing the dawn just outside the window. And the air still stank of ashes and burning.
Kasha and Teo . . . gods. She watched out her window at the bloody sunrise, not really seeing it. Boitan had kept pouring drugs into them until he'd knocked them out. They'd been out of their young minds with grief. Kasha had gone catatonic, and Teo had begun tearing out his own hair in clumps.
She wasn't sure which had been worse; Kasha's dead eyes, or Teo's near-madness.
Boitan said it was hysteria; that they'd be mourning more normally when they woke up. She damned well hoped so; she'd only lost one damned fine lad and her successor and . . . someone who had begun to be a treasured friend. They'd lost a third of themselves.
She remembered only too well how that felt.
She'd dreaded telling Yuchai, but Jegrai had broken the news to the boy—with a gentle lie. So far as Yuchai was concerned, Zorsha had been working on something for Felaras, not the Sabirn-fire. The child had enough to bear without that on his conscience.
The candle gave a last flare, and went out.
She wasn't sure what had happened to Halun; things had been very confused after Boitan had peeled her off the body.
The thought could have been a summons; someone tapped briefly at her door, and then opened it and slipped inside like a ghost.
Halun. He looked like a ghost.
"I thought you'd still be awake," he croaked, voice ruined from weeping. He'd cleaned himself up, but there were black circles all around his bloodshot eyes, and he was as pale as bleached parchment. "Felaras, I have to talk to you."
She pulled herself up into a sitting position and waved at the bedside chair, wearily. "So talk."
He did not take the offered seat, although he moved closer to the bed. "It was my fault—" he began.
She cut him off, angrily. "Dammit, Halun, do I have to hear that from you, too? I've heard it from everybody else—"
He interrupted. "Felaras, you don't understand!" he cried tightly, his face twisted with grief. "I caused what happened! I was the one ill-wishing you."
Not what she had expected to hear. She froze, her backbone turned to a column of ice. It took her a moment to recover enough to gasp out an answer. "You? But . . . why?"
"Ambition," he said, angrily, brokenly. "Stupid, selfish ambition. You had the chair. I wanted it. I convinced myself I only wanted it for the good of the Order, but I lied to myself, I wanted it because I wanted the power. I corrupted myself and persuaded myself I was doing the right thing—I was trying to undermine you at first, and then you and Jegrai. I was trying to get you to make the mistakes that would let us depose you both." He paused for breath, and twisted his hands together so hard the knuckles cracked. "You were protected; so I trained some with the power, and went after you tonight in concert with them. Only I added a little codicil. You probably don't understand—"
"Only too well, you bastard," she snarled. "I was the one protecting myself."
He goggled at her a moment. "I—I—" He got control of himself just enough to take up where he'd left off. "I set the wish so that if you were shielded and it bounced off you, it wouldn't go -randomly—I set it to strike whoever was the one nearest you—"
"You damned fool!" She surged up out of bed and seized him by the throat. Her abused knee shot fire up her leg, pain that she ignored. "You gods-bedamned fool! What have you been doing down there? Sleeping? I just made Zorsha my official successor! Who in the hell else would it take?"
Halun paled down to near-transparent and shut his eyes, not struggling in her hands at all. "I didn't know . . ." he whispered. "I've been so busy with all those stupid little plots that I didn't know . . . I thought it would get Kasha, Teo—"
"I ought to break your damned neck with my own two hands!"
He opened his eyes again and looked directly into hers. His eyes were full of such pain that they nearly burned her soul. There was hell in those eyes, and self-condemnation that was worse than anything she could do to him. "I wish you would," he whispered miserably. "He was—my son in everything but the flesh."
She looked at her hands, clenched white-knuckled in the fabric of his robe, and back up into his face. It hadn't changed.
She shoved him away with such force that he staggered and came close to falling over backward. "What the hell am I going to do with you?" she asked, sagging back onto her bed, sick to the bones, and weary past all belief.
"I don't know," he replied, in profound desolation. "Just . . . I gave him my word to help you. Tell me how, and I will."
She considered him for a moment, as he stood there, waiting.
For what? Gods. Help me, he says. How in—
Then she knew, and rang the bell beside her bed for a novice. "Is there anyone else in the Order working with you?" she asked harshly, as she waited for the youngster to put in an appearance.
He shook his head. "No. Not even Zetren. All my co-conspirators are down in the valley."
The novice arrived, slipping in the still-open door; a thin, dark girl-child of about fourteen. Memory put name to her; Daisa, another of Ardun's endless brood of daughters, and older than she looked, about to get full Sword status. Another Kasha-in-the-making, for which she was grateful. It'll be a long time before I can see a blond lad without crying. . . .
"Get me Thaydore and Kitri," she said, "And Boitan, if he's still awake."
The child vanished. "Get me pen and paper out of that drawer over there," she said, pointing to the little writing-desk in the corner of her room.
Halun did so, as docile to her orders as the novice. She pulled the lap desk out from under the bed and set it up.
Then she glared at him; still in a rage, but no longer a white-hot one—and a rage that was fast being cooled by his very real guilt and sorrow.
"Sit down," she ordered. "You're going to be here a while."
He took the chair, obediently.
"Now," she said, pen poised. "Let's have all this from the beginning."