He went to the torch and took it again, then came close to me, staring up into my face, seeming to nerve himself to do it, and his eyes behind the amber glass were fixed and wide.
“Son of Vazkor,” he said, “if you have his sorcery in you, you had better use it. Eshkorek is split in factions, and I am no longer the only man bowed to as Javhovor. Yet we are united in one thing. To kill you by inches will be a rare dish for those of us who have known only the grim aftermath of Vazkor’s battles.”
His voice, dead calm and empty as a dry well, made me fear the prospect suddenly as I had avoided fearing it before. Where there was this blankness, there seemed no hope of a weakening, and none of any sort of clemency. I would rather have Demizdor’s lashing, that even then I think I knew was only love wrung in another shape. I swallowed, for there was a hemlock taste in my throat.
I said, “Suppose, then, they do not believe I am Vazkor’s?”
“You shall be tested,” a new voice answered me.
I turned my head and saw Zrenn. Softer than a cat he had come creeping in. He no longer wore the black garments and silver skull, but ocher picked out with silver ornaments, delicate as a girl’s and a silver fox-mask.
Kortis turned also.
“Well, what news?”
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Zrenn bowed. There was a yellow topaz in the fox’s brow, catching the torchlight.
“The messenger went out, my Javhovor, and returned. Nemarl, also Erran, agree to meet us, as you stipulated, but first they have sent a man to view our prisoner. Their caution does them credit, my lord, don’t you agree?”
Kortis said, “Is the man here? Then let him come in. Why wait on ceremony?”
Zrenn gestured into the corridor. One of the guards called to another, and there came again the tramp of feet and pitch of torches. Soon the emissary entered. His clothes were more ragged even than the scabby splendor of the Phoenix and his captains, and his mask was of a gray cloth. Some lower citizen, an unfortunate appropriated for this work by the rival princes, he was expendable and entirely aware of the fact.
He immediately fell on his knees before Kortis, fumbling off his mask. His teeth were grayer than the cloth, his face nearly as gray.
“I entreat the immunity of a messenger, great lord, Kortis Javhovor. Don’t harm me, only an old man who is nothing, nothing-”
Zrenn slapped him lightly across the head.
“Shut your foul gob, decrepit. Identify the warrior, as you were told to by your gentle masters. My lord Kortis is sick already of your noise.”
At this, the emissary looked up at me.
His red-rimmed eyes bulged as if they would burst the sockets. From being on his knees to Kortis, he now plunged face downward before me, whimpering.
Zrenn kicked him.
“Vazkor, it is Vazkor,” the old man shrilled. He edged crawling along the floor, over the rat droppings, and clasped my manacled feet. “Mercy, Overlord.” he whined to me, peering up as if into a strong irresistible glare.
Zrenn broke into his soft and sinuous laughter.
“Proof indeed,” he said, and laughed again.
“How does the old man know him?” Kortis inquired. You could tell nothing from his tone.
“He is a tame creature of Prince Emm’s. The prince says the old man was among the infantry that marched on Purple Valley, under Vazkor. He got some wound that saw him home before the offensive broke.”
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“Ask him if this is true.”
“My lord.” Zrenn strolled over to the old man and toed him away from me as if clearing garbage. “Do you hear the Javhovor? Did you fight under Vazkor?”
The emissary stumbled upright. He mumbled an affirmative. His eyes pleaded with me not to visit my wrath on him. The bronze guard clanked through the narrow door at some fresh signal of Zrenn’s, and pulled the gray messenger away.
For all the visitations of my father’s memory, this had shaken me. It might have been his ghost reproaching me for my fear, my lack of ability; for whatever power had been in me, I seemed to have exhausted it.
“Where is the meeting place, and when?” Kortis said.
“The Temple-Prince Nemarl’s joke, I venture to suggest. Midday.”
“How many of their swords in attendance?”
“Nemarl says five captains, one hundred bronzes. I think Erran will bring more.”
“See we are equal to them, and preferably superior.”
“My lord.” Zrenn went to the door, hesitated, and said, ”Javhovor, my kinswoman asks that she may accompany you.”
“Demizdor shall remain here,” Kortis answered.
“That will grieve her, my lord. She’s hungry to see the savage writhe.”
“No, Zrenn,” Kortis said, “it is you who are hungry for that Demizdor hungers for other things. I will have no ladies at such a meeting. Vengeance is a slender thing to make a truce from. Tell her to stay in her apartments.” He turned to follow Zrenn out, nodding at me, courteously. “Bear with the dark a little longer, son of Vazkor. Soon you shall have light in plenty.”
Certainly, there was light, a bright, still day at the brink of the young winter, sky like hammered platinum. A scatter of leaves blew in the streets from trees in overgrown gardens, charred cinnabar papers at the base of the looming deadness of Eshkorek.
Light in the Temple, too. A goddess temple, rededicated, as I had been told, to Uastis (mother-mine) in the days of her power, since decimated, roof fallen, walls breached and left gaping-a colossal, empty, echoing forum, filled only at its
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eastern end. Nemarl’s joke. Yes, surely. To decide my punishment under the shadow of she who had been my father’s wife.
For the great goddess statue was still standing. A giantess of yellow stone stained by ancient fires, a skirt of bronze and gold and necklets of emerald and jade, with ruby nipples in her breasts. She stood too high to be looted, like a small mountain. You would need heroes to scale that scarp and wrench out the gems. She seemed as tall as the sky. She would have seemed taller if she had retained her head. But the same shot that brought down the ceiling had severed the skull of the Eshkirian Uastis. In those days they had cared enough for religion to sweep up the pieces like broken eggs, but you might note the cracks in the mosaic floor where her marble brains had been dashed out.
So much for Kortis’ promise of light, and for Nemarl’s joke.
There was another joke, Zrenn’s.
They came in my cell, unchained me and led me above. In a little mildewed bathing chamber, they stripped my krarl garments and offered me the bath, gracious as for a prince. I mistrusted the barber with the razor, but he only shaved me carefully, and did not cut my throat, as I half imagined he would. This done, I was clad in black velvet breeches and tunic, royal finery, even boots of leather with buckles of gold. Bronze-masked men, with grinning eyes behind the glass eyepieces, brought me a chain of golden links, an armlet of jade thick as two fingers, a black ring.
I knew very well what they were at; I could hardly miss it. They were dressing me as Vazkor had dressed, perhaps in the very clothes that had covered his body-though I doubted it. I had surmised already from their talk and whisperings that his corpse was never found beneath the fallen Tower. Only certain soldiers of his who had unintelligently surrendered to the besiegers, had left the six cities a legacy of their black gear and silver skull-masks with which to frighten the tribes.
If it was Zrenn’s joke, it was not a jest for me. No longer chained but clothed as a prince, I felt my courage come back to me, strong enough to make me wince at the fear I had felt before. If they were to kill me, they would do it. They should not at least be titillated by my cowardice into the bargain.
In the yard before Kortis’ palace was a black gelding
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trapped with purple, green, and gold. When I mounted up, their Javhovor and his soldiers came down the steps. Zrenn ran forward to me, swept off his mask, and bowed extravagantly.
“Greeting, Vazkor, Overlord of White Desert, Chosen of the Goddess!”
He was like a boy going on his first hunt, so joyous was he at the prospect of grief and torture to come.
I was ready when he looked up smiling, and spit in his face.
This he did not like. His smile twisted, and he wiped his smooth cheek with one hand, searching for his sword with the other. He had got too close. It was easy for me to catch him lightly in the chest with my new boot, and topple him backward. He went sprawling. No one ran to help him, but there was all about the rasp of metal abandoning scabbard.