“Goddess, forgive my request that you come here, but I felt it was safer, perhaps.” A little pause, during which I noticed several courtiers and ministers around the walls. Behind me, the white fans of the princesses dipped nervously. “We have been forced,” the Javhovor began, and halted. “We thought it best,” he said. “A cruel decision. We have delivered ourselves to the mercy of our sister Cities, Anash and Eptor. There was no other path for us, goddess. I could not see my own die around me,”
I was angry with myself for falling into this trap, angry at the Javhovor for ensnaring me, angry with Mazlek that he had not sensed, and come in time after all.
“What have you done?” I asked-a blind speech enough, but he answered.
“The men of Belhannor will rise against the men of White Desert on the wall. It has been arranged.” He hung his head, gray and sick at the betrayal for which I did not even blame him.
“And I?” I said. “Where do I fit in this tapestry?”
“No insult will be offered you, goddess-I swear it.”
“I am delighted you are so confident. I do not share your optimism.”
There came a sudden, distant noise outside-shouts, cries, a roar of surprise and pain. No cannon uttered; there was no need. The men of Belhannor would be opening wide the
276
gates now, welcoming their brothers inside, hopeful and a little nervous.
I sat my heaviness in a chair to wait, and noticed that the princesses slunk little by little away from me, to their father’s side. Soon there was a sound of booted feet, horses, many voices under the windows, before long, marchers rhythmic in the corridor outside, the doors and curtains thrust aside, and twenty men emptying into the hall. Mixed uniforms of purple and bright yellow, armor pieces, the visors of helms tipped back to show the arrogant masks of lions and bears-Anash, the mistress of the offensive. A man, a silver-masked soldier yet very proud, spiteful in triumph, swaggered into the hall-their commander, thinking himself their Javhovor.
A half nod to the High-Lord of Belhannor, a vicious little chuckle.
“Well. An intelligent move, brother.”
They might have been Vazkor’s words, but the voice was very light and high, oddly matched with the bulk of the man.
And then the insolent turning, the gaze taking in the length and breadth of the hall, coming to rest at last on me.
“And who is this, brother? Your lady, perhaps?”
He would know of me, know of the cat-faced goddess of Ezlann. She who had carried the enemy of Anash to his power.
“I am Uastis,” I said to the commander. “My husband is Vazkor, who would have plowed you and yours deep in the river soil had he but time to spare.”
I said it to anger him, catch him off balance in this atmosphere of placatory groveling. His hand whipped to sword hilt, and I felt a laziness come on me, knowing what I could do, to him at least, and to his twenty, if I could summon hate enough. But after that, death would come, or the only form of death I could know. And abruptly I was afraid. How my enemies could play with me, endless games of agony.
There came a startling little cry, just beyond the door, 1 little thrusting and cursing because a man had fallen and pushed others as he fell. The Anash commander turned, and in that moment the doorway changed color and shape and was full of black-liveried men, some green-roped at the middle, all with the badge of a cat on the right side of the breast. Swift swords and men dropping before them. The floor was littered purple and yellow.
Two men ran to me-Slor and Mazlek.
“Goddess-quickly!”
277
I ran with them, not pausing to watch the amazement on those figures left alive behind us.
There were many corridors in the palace at Belhannor, and those we ran through were very empty. I had the impression that we were going downward, but had no time or breath to ask-that other in me made it hard for me to keep up. Then we turned out into a broad dark hall, and found a pack of the purple and yellow soldiers, plundering chests. Apparently anything that ran and did not wear their colors was fair game for them. At once swords were out, and they came rushing at us up the hall, yelling. Mazlek pulled me across their path, through a side door which was slammed behind us.
Fewer men with me now. Many had stayed on the far side of the door to hold off the pursuit. A sloping passageway ran down, followed by flights of dark stairways where wall torches struggled to remain alight. I stumbled many times.
In the damp darkness, we heard the great clang of the door bursting open above, and knew the hunt was on again.
“Not far,” Mazlek whispered. “A door soon they won’t be able to open.”
The steps narrowed and became a corridor without lights. Behind, the sounds were wild and raucous and savage. Slor came to a halt, and the rest of the men froze where they stood.
“We’ll hold them here,” he said, “a narrow place. By the time they can get past us, you will have got the goddess safe away.”
Mazlek hesitated a second, then he nodded. He reached out and clasped Slor’s shoulder hard in his hand, then he turned and pulled me on into the dark.
I was quite breathless by now, and hardly understood what was happening. It seemed only some awful part of my ordeal when my fingers met stone, and I found the corridor ended in a blank wall. I leaned on the cold pitted surface, gasping, and Mazlek thrust something into my hands.
“A cloak,” he said, “and a plain silk mask-iron gray, the color of the lower orders in Belhannor. Please put them on.”
I turned away and obeyed him,, though I could not see how this would help us. When I looked back, I saw that he had donned a tunic of this stuff over his mail, and a plain mask also. I dropped the cat mask where he had dropped his own, and his badge and sash with it, but the open skull-cat eyes glared up at me, my own self left behind. A rasping
278
sound made me jump back from the wall. A narrow oblong opening had appeared, framing blackness.
Mazlek held up one hand on which a ring curled I had not seen him wear before.
“I bought this key many days ago,” he said. “I thought it might prove useful.”
He guided me into the black mouth, followed me, then shut the way behind us.
“They may never see the door,” he said. “If they do, it will be useless to them without the ring.”
He grasped my arm firmly and we started forward. I could make out nothing at first, but then a greenish luminance began to ripple about us, and I smelled the river.
The light grew. I saw mud and mosses clinging on the walls. Bright green weeds strangled about our feet.
We came out of a small cave, like a rat’s bolt-hole, into the dull, white, faintly smoking day. The passage had opened on a low bank of the river, but not the river I had known from my windows. This was an oily trickle, clogged with weed growths and garbage. Rough steps led up from the mud to the narrow streets, peeling houses, and war ruins of the lower quarter.
8
The purple and yellow soldiery of Anash had filtered through into these streets, but by careful maneuvering we avoided a face-to-face collision with them. Despite their leader’s promises of brotherhood, they were breaking down the doors of perfume shops, clothiers and jewelers, and taking what they thought valuable. In an alley we passed a dog they had used for archery practice. Their noise was always with us-now distant, now dangerously close. Twice other men passed our hastily sought hiding places, in charcoal colors, marching. Eptor, it seemed, were a more orderly crew.
Most of the house doors were locked tight and bolted from within. Many had fled, I think, at the last instant into the cellars and passages beneath their houses. Nearer the wall a whole street had been gutted by fire, still smoking, and a thick scattering of dead men lay there, some of whom I recognized; the last soldiers of Vazkor’s army.
Finally, a white stone house with a courtyard, the door of which was swinging on broken hinges. We went inside, and
279
Mazlelt dragged furniture from inner rooms to block the entrance. He would not let me help him. Once the barricade was in place, we went in and upstairs, and found narrow empty bedchambers. He made me lie on a bed, and pulled the covers over me.