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great amount, it seems, but then they were not sure how many troops I had brought with me. Eshkorek has not yet sent men against me, but she will, no doubt, when pressed.”
The captain of Vazkor’s guard got to his feet, giving vent to some curse on Eshkorek’s faithlessness.
“Overlord-”
“No need for panic, captain. I have kept one security. There is a charge that not the gods but I-by some incredible means-struck down Asren Javhovor. They have said they consider the evidence against him-his attempted murder of the goddess-was false, and they have elected their new lord out of the Ezlann royal house as a proof. Now, gentlemen, Asren Javhovor is still alive.”
Startled exclamations along the table, except from the Warden, of course, who stared uneasily at his rings.
Vazkor waited for the outcry to subside. Then he said, in a very cool and measured voice: “What Asren tried to do was foolish. His loyal people would have killed him themselves, torn him apart in the streets, if they had been given his body when he collapsed. But the goddess was merciful, and desired no vengeance. I had him declared dead, and then I sent him here, where he has been a prisoner under the authority of the Warden ever since. When our guests arrive, I shall tell them this, and present them with Asren. Most probably they will elect him overlord in place of their present choice. The grateful Asren will then reinstate me as High Commander of his armies.”
“Can you trust him?” the captain asked.
“Completely,” Vazkor said. “Asren’s mind has become somewhat-unstable, shall I say? And please do not forget, my divine wife has some influence.”
They glanced at me warily. He did not look at me at all. He imagined I would see the foolishness of speaking now, of telling them whose influence would truly direct Asren in the next moves of this game. It was a curious situation. Vazkor’s men did not know it was he who had destroyed Asren’s mind, and, though they could not fail to see, when he produced him, what Asren had become, there was no fear they would betray Vazkor’s manipulation-it was in their own interests that he succeed. As for possible traitors-how powerless. Myself-but I would be silent. Mazlek-but he was mine and would do as I did. The old woman and the girl-perhaps, but they were witless. Only the Warden presented any danger. I glanced at him, and he seemed abruptly aware of his trouble. As he quivered there in his seat, Vazkor turned to him.
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“There are certain diplomatic errors in our present situation. It would be more fitting, Warden, if you were to return to your City of Eshkorek Amor, before the next stage begins. Your presence here must be an embarrassment both to your master and yourself.”
It was obvious the man could not believe his luck. He bowed and thanked Vazkor profusely for such tactful kindness.
Vazkor rose, holding out his arm for me. Two of his men fell in behind us as we mounted the stairs to his room. Inside, he shut the door, and indicated for me a chair by the lowburning fire. I did not go to it.
“The Warden,” I said, “will naturally perish before he reaches the City.”
“Naturally,” he said, “and his men.”
“It is possible someone may find their bodies.”
“Not at all. This tower is well-equipped to take care of such things.”
I said nothing, and he drew off the wolf mask, and put it on the table.
“I think you understand now why Asren has been kept here all this while.”
“I understand. And I oppose you, Vazkor. You have done enough. He is not your horse to ride to market on.”
“When they are at the door, my sister, you may think diferently.”
“Let it end here, then,” I said. “Both of us possess enough Power to go free with our lives.”
“I have used my life,” he said, “and I shall not stop now. I am not a wanderer. I know my road.” He sat down in the chair I had refused, and looked at me. His face was quite blank, completely closed, his eyes a steady bar of darkness that seemed to have no break. “Even you, my sister, see your life as a succession of units, a river, in which the men and women you meet are like islands. But you’re wrong. Your vision is confined in the narrowness you have made. We are the sum of our achievements, nothing more and nothing less. The mountain road which led us here was built by a dead people none of us would remember otherwise. What we create is the only part of us which can survive, or has the right to. Man is nothing, except to other men.”
I had no answer. There was no purpose in answering. I did not even marvel that he had spent so much of his philosophy on me. I put my hand on the door to go.
He said, “How long before the child comes?”
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“Sixty days-eighty days-I think I have lost count. The month named for the peacock in Ezlann, so you said.”
“You understand that now it is officially Asren’s progeny,” he said to me. “For the moment at least. A detail, but you should try to remember.”
“There was a woman at Belhannor. A village healer. I did mv best to be rid of what you gave me, but I failed. The result of my efforts may not be very beautiful.”
“The child will be perfect,” he said. “I am surprised you cannot see that. Your organs heal themselves from mortal wounds, and yet you expect your womb to succumb to a village abortion.”
Oddly, I had not thought of this, had not compared these separate yet related facts before. I realized I had stupidly still half-believed I would not bear. I opened the door and went out. It was dark, very dark, on the stairways of the tower.
Through the evening I heard the Warden’s preparations for his flight from the tower. He was to leave at dawn with all his few men. But not for Eshkorek Arnor. I did not know what Vazkor had planned for him-did not know if he or his guard would see to it.
Determined to sleep, to blot out any sound or sight of violence, I lay awake until the first red claw marks of the sun opened the sky.
There had been nothing. Yet neither were there hoofbeats on the bridge, riding away to the City.
The innocence of silence was too profound.
4
I took Asren to walk on the tower battlements, as I had not done since Vazkor’s men were posted there. It was a warm bright day, the blue wheel of the sky turning itself slowly overhead. Asren had become brave with the mouse, and was letting it run from one arm to the other, stroking it whenever it stopped still for a moment.
Perhaps thirty feet away the solitary sentry stood, his back to us, curious eyes averted. I had not felt safe to speak before.
“We must leave the tower,” I said softly to Mazlek. “Very soon, before the army of the new overlord arrives.” I told him of Vazkor’s plans, and Mazlek said nothing, but his right
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hand clenched on the parapet, clenched and unclenched rhythmically. “I do not know how we can do it,” I said. “Possibly at night. We can deal with the stray guards we may meet, but any uproar will bring Vazkor. I do not think I can fight Vazkor, his powers are superior to mine-I have told you this already. And the moat-how can we cross it without using the bridgeway, which will make more noise than anything else?”
Mazlek shook his head.
“Perhaps there are undereround passages here, as in Belhannor, goddess. Most strongholds have them as a final means of escape during siege or attack. But it would be difficult to trace them. Vazkor’s wolves are not to be bought.”
“The old woman,” I said, “she may know, and she is too simple to betray any questions to him.”
The sentry stretched, removed his helm, scratched at his blond hair, and subsided once more into immobility.
“And beyond this place.” I said, “where can we go? No longer any shelter in the Cities.”
“Eastward from the mountains there are rock plains and areas of forest, marshes to the southeast and south, and then the sea. A wild land, good to be lost in if any were coming after,” Mazlek said.
“Deserted land?”
“Almost, goddess. A few tribal peoples, savage and war-mad, krarl against krarl, though, reportedly, they do no harm to out-clan strangers.”
“Then that is the desolation we must go to, to be safe for a time.”
It seemed a gray hopeless future for all of us, but there was no other way. Escape, the imperative need, left no margin for despair.