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  " 'Inform the youth that his city has played false and surrendered to the rebels. His father the king and the rest of the royal family were then torn to pieces by the mob. Make it known that this is why he has lost his rights as a hostage and is of no further value.' " She paused to let the scribes catch up. " 'Put him to death by whatever means please you. Report your compliance.' Usual closing.

  "Larth, read back," she said, and listened as an unpleasantly nasal voice repeated what she had said, decorated with flowery scribal frills. "Nerkurtu?"

  "I have the same," said the younger scribe.

  "Bring them." Light flared briefly as the boy apprentice backed out through the drapes. When they fell back behind him, he turned in her direction and stood blind, holding out the tablets on a tray. She could read very little ofthe complex cuneiform script, but she saw well enough in the dark to stamp the clay with her husband's seal. When they had been baked, she would have other scribes read both letters to her again—separately—before one was dispatched and the other placed in the palace archives. To trust anyone was folly. The apprentice went back inside to carry the letters to the ovens and roll out more clay.

  Overhead the spangled heavens were framed between the twin blacks of the canyon walls. Skjar was a city of islands, among which the river murmured unceasingly. Here and there she could see scattered pinpricks of light from lamps or candles. Below her lay ghostly white rapids and reflections of stars fallen in still pools.

  "Next," she said. After having had the tablets read to her several times, she almost knew them by heart.

  Larth's thin voice began to squeak to the bats flittering by overhead: "The noble bloodlord writes, 'The cities of Nianoma and Piaregga waver in their loyalty. Return their hostages to me that I may stiffen the rulers' resolve.' May these words please my lady."

  They didn't, much. Stralg meant something like "So I can call their fathers in to watch their children being battered." At times her brother was a fool. Because frightfulness inspired terror at first, he thought it always would, but it didn't. Repeated brutality provoked numbness, then fury, and finally retaliation. Besides, he needed fresh troops far more than he needed prisoners to torture; the number of live bodies Therek could run over the Edge in a season was limited.

  "Never mind that one," she said. "What's next?"

  As she waited, she paced the terrace, which was only a niche chiseled out of the living rock of the cliff. She liked the feel of cool bedrock under her bare feet and the curious contrast of temperature when she rested forearms on the sun-warmed stone of the balustrade. She was a large woman, and the heat was still murderous. Somewhere she heard a faint rumble of wagon wheels. Soon overeager roosters would start crowing.

  Larth said, "The noble bloodlord writes, 'The doge of Celebre has always been true to his oaths, but his health ebbs. If I decide to withdraw from Miona, Celebre may become important again. Send one of the hostages to rule when the doge dies.' May these words please my lady."

  Typically, Stralg could never be perfectly honest, even with her. "If I decide to withdraw from Miona" meant "If I get driven out of Miona." Or even "When I get driven out of Miona." By conceding the possibility, he was virtually predicting it. Wherever Miona was.

  It was no secret now that the war went badly. At first his Werists had met no divinely inspired resistance, and slaughtering extrinsics was child's play to warbeasts. He had subdued all of Florengia faster and more easily than he had previously conquered Vigaelia. Then he had made an error—just one, but one scratch can kill a man, and that single miscalculation had festered like a belly wound. If he now foresaw Celebre becoming important, he must be contemplating defeat. At Celebre, he would be back where he started, with his heels on the Edge. Celebre controlled the way home to Vigaelia, so the dying doge must be replaced by an equally reliable puppet.

  Saltaja had no trouble remembering the Celebre children, because they had been the first hostages to arrive, and they had caught her attention several times since, notably when Karvak Hragson died in strange circumstances. One boy was certainly dead, and the others would no longer be children. Young males being notoriously unreliable, the girl was the obvious choice. She was nubile and could be sent home with a suitable husband to do the actual ruling while keeping her busy with babies. The two surviving brothers would be potential rival claimants and must be eliminated, but it would be prudent to see her on her way over the Edge before disposing of them.

  "Write. From me to Satrap Horold Hragson of Kosord. Usual titles. "To her valiant brother, twelve blessings and her deepest love. You have custody of the hostage...' "

  Wait!

  The Celebre girl was right here in Skjar. Her route to the Florengian Face would take her past both Horold in Kosord and Therek in Tryfors. Saltaja had been thinking for some time that she ought to investigate what was going on in the family. Therek, especially, was becoming worrisomely erratic. She need not go right to the Edge itself, but certainly as far as Tryfors, the jumping-off place for crossings. Yes, a personal inspection felt like a very good idea. She could deliver her instructions face-to-face and also escape the steam-bath horrors of another summer in Skjar.

  "Cancel that letter. Send for my husband! Tell him to bring a Witness."

  She wiped her streaming forehead. Why did she ever put up with this stew pot of a town anyway? Originally, she supposed, because it was where Therek, eldest of the brothers, had been initiated into the Heroes, the mystery cult of Weru. Xaran's tits! That had been thirty-five years ago! Therek had helped the others to become Werists also, still here in Skjar. And it had been in Skjar that Stralg had won the title of bloodlord, the Fist of Weru. Before his reign that had always been a meaningless title, but from the first Stralg had intended to claim his right to rule all the Werists of Vigaelia. His wounds had barely healed before he overthrew Skjar's city elders and began using the city's wealth to finance his campaign. In a mere ten years he ruled the entire Face, Werists and extrinsics both. He had kept Skjar as his capital mostly because it was central and had good communications. It was convenient. Insufferable, but convenient. Also, it was rich, able to support a standing army and the cumbersome machinery of government.

  When Stralg went off to conquer Florengia, he had 6ffi-cially left his brothers and brother-in-law to rule Vigaelia for him, and in practice left Saltaja to rule them. Karvak had died when Jat-Nogul rose in rebellion. Therek, Horold, and Eide had promptly crushed the rebellion and sacked the city in reprisal. Otherwise nothing much had changed in fifteen years.

  She began pacing again, homy feet scuffing on the tiles. "Next?"

  The next item was another of Stralg's rants about the need for more men, and she ignored it. Recruitment was becoming harder and harder as the war dragged on with no sign of any Heroes returning, other than the few who were too badly maimed to continue fighting yet could still manage the return crossing. Training a Werist took years, so there were still as many men being initiated as Therek could ram over Nardalborg Pass in a season. The manpower problem could wait. "Next?"

  Next was a demand for gold. That was new. At first Stralg's campaign had sent a torrent of loot and slaves back to Vigaelia. The flow had dwindled as resistance sprouted, and this new demand meant he must be having trouble feeding and housing his horde. She dictated a letter to be sent out to all the cities in Eide's satrapy and made a mental note to call in the bursar from the temple of Weru, where most of Skjar's wealth was stored. She would have to fleece the local Ucrists, also.

  Whatever was keeping her moronic husband? She pushed through the drape into the lamplit room. The air was stifling. The two scribes and the boy looked up in alarm.

  "Guard!" she barked.

  A Werist materialized in the far doorway, practically filling it. "My lady?"

  She noted with satisfaction that he was as frightened of her as the two clerks were, although he was twice her size and a fraction of her age.

  "Where is the satrap?"

  The boy gulped, looked b
ehind him, and stepped aside with a gasp of relief. "Here he is, my lady!"

  Eide lumbered in, unarmed and barefoot, wearing his pall wrapped around him like a towel instead of properly draped. Eide had always been a bull of a man, and now he was twice as big, three times as hairy, and much more bovine, with two stub horns and an animal smell. Obviously—obvious to Saltaja, if not to others—he hadbeen fetched from some woman's bed, but that was normal for him. She had not let him touch her in years. He was out of breath, which was a satisfactory demonstration of obedience.

  His entry made the room crowded. The scribes moved hastily into corners and tried not to stare at his feet, which he rarely left uncovered. The Witness of Mayn who followed him in was tiny, swathed completely in white, without even her hands showing. She looked like a discarded pillow alongside the giant.

  Eide grunted a surly "?" and yawned.

  "I want to know where the three Celebre hostages are. Ask her." Under the compact, the Witnesses would answer only Stralg himself and his three hostleaders, Eide, Therek, and Horold. Saltaja had to send all her queries through one of them.

  Eide growled, "Answer the question."

  Some Maynists would insist he repeat it. This one was either more obliging or anxious to go back to bed. "None of them is within my range."

  "What is the Wisdom on them?" Saltaja asked. The Wisdom was the collective knowledge of the cult, but how it worked was part of the mystery, a secret known only within the Ivory Cloisters at Bergashamm.

  "Answer," Eide said.

  "The girl has gone inland, to her guardian's estate at Kyrn. We have no reason to believe that the hostage Benard Celebre is not still in Kosord or the hostage Orlando Celebre at Nardalborg."

  "The Ucrist Wigson is here in Skjar?"

  "He is. Working in his counting office." Witnesses rarely volunteered information. This one sounded young and might be showing off the range of her sight.

  Satisfactory. Saltaja was about to dismiss the two of them, when her native caution stirred. "The first Celebre hostage, the eldest—tell me of him."

  "He died," said the woman in the shroud.

  "You confirm that he did physically die in the commonly understood sense of the word? You are not using the expression in some special cultish way?" She had caught them out in half-truths before now.

  "The boy Dantio Celebre died fourteen years ago from shock and loss of blood, and his heart stopped beating. It is so recorded in the Wisdom. You have been informed of this three times."

  "You may go." Saltaja nodded to the satrap. "And you also, my sweet. But send me Huntleader Perag Hrothgatson. I have a job for him."

  "Send for him yourself." Eide turned to follow the seer out.

  Saltaja said, "No. You will go and bring him to me."

  He froze, and for a moment she thought she would have to discipline him. Then he snorted a surrender noise and left, his feet clopping like hooves on the tiles.

  So it was decided. She would deliver the girl to Tryfors in person. Not by chariot, of course. Not for the Queen of Shadows that endless bouncing, the dust and heat and rain. They would travel by riverboat.

  four

  THE ELDEST

  awoke and saw that she was dying. Death was all through her, like ivy in a forest, spreading fast. Whatever the common folk might think, the Witnesses of Mayn did not prophesy; the word was a joke among them, a reminder that the gods could not be bound. The seers' blessing was knowledge, and the Eldest knew that she would not rise from her bed. That was not prophecy, it was accomplished fact. Already her feet and hands were cold, no longer hers or part of her. She lay still, composing herself, calming that faltering, frail heart. Reproaching herself for feeling fear. Chiding herself for her sorrow. Many, many things she had wanted to finish, but death was no respecter of agendas. She should be grateful for these few last moments, a grace from holy Mayn. Always the Eldest of the Witnesses was granted a farewell, so that she might name her successor. Some were also permitted to pass on some special insight from the goddess.

  She had been given so many years! She was Eldest of this, the mother lodge in the Ivory Cloisters at Bergashamm, and thus Eldest to all the Witnesses on the Vigaelian Face, and although "eldest" was her title, it was close to literal truth in her case. She had been already old when she was appointed vicar of the goddess, so many years ago. Her name then had been Raven, but she had not heard it used in all those years. Her reign had not been an easy one, perhaps the hardest ever, and she still could not be sure that she had made the right choice. She, who should be the wisest of all the gods' children must withhold judgment on her own life's work. But she need not worry about that now. Very soon the goddess would reveal the answers, solve all mysteries.

  Sunlight on the wall showed that it was still very early. Taking her last farewell of the worn old stones and silvered beams, of the threadbare rugs she had knotted herself long years ago, the Eldest was reminded that she was blind. It had happened gradually as she aged, and she had barely noticed, still seeing the world with the goddess's eyes, which worked much better than her own ever had. Here on her deathbed, the Eldest saw into kitchens and laundry and larders; the refectory where novices were laying out bowls for the morning meal; the great weaving hall where the goddess's work was done. The fields beyond the walls she could no longer reach; her sight was dwindling.

  Urgently she needed the members of her hand, but the blessings Mayn granted did not include summoning. Not that the Maynists' abilities were limited to sight. Their other senses were also blessed. The Witnesses took the sacred number to extremes: five edges of each Face of the world, five senses, five blessings, five fingers to a hand. The sisters themselves were grouped in hands—five reported directly to the Eldest, five to each of them, and so on. All five of the Eldest's hand were in residence at the moment. They would see her. The range of seeing depended on the importance of what was to be seen, and her passing would matter greatly to them.

  Meanwhile she must consider her successor, because the name she spoke would control the course of the cult for years. Werists did not live to be old men. Even if they did not die at the hands of their own kind in battle or brawl, the gross demands their god's blessing made upon their bodies led to early death. They professed to glory in their choice of fame over long life, but they made that decision while still too young to comprehend the cost. Stralg would die; the evil would pass.

  She needed to cough away pain, but the effort was unthinkable.

  Stralg, Stralg! So the monster would outlive her? By one of holy Cienu's divine jests, the Witnesses of Mayn and the Heroes of Weru in Vigaelia had each received a new leader on the same day. She had been named in the dying words of her predecessor. How Weru revealed His choice was a secret of His mysteries, but the death toll suggested that mortal combat would be a reasonable guess.

  About twenty sixdays later, Stralg had come calling at Bergashamm. It had been done on a whim, certainly, or else the seers would have felt his intention. Leading a host through the neighborhood, he had suddenly detoured and thrown a cordon around the Cloisters. He had entered alone—over a locked gate, ripping a door from its sockets, and marching into the innermost sanctum, the great hall, where none but Witnesses might come.

  The vault was high and dim, for the Witnesses had no need of light and large windows would pass drafts to disturb the webs. From Bergashamm the seers went out into the world to Witness. When they returned, it was to the hall they brought the truths they had garnered, the threads they had spun, there to be woven into the great webs that were their records of the world and its ways. They sang as they worked among the high looms, weaving melody as they wove happenings, glorifying their goddess.

  The Eldest was there when Stralg intruded. His coming had been seen by then, of course. The singing had faltered into cries of terror and the others had all fled. She stood alone, still and white-draped in the gloom, forcing herself not to shrink from the stench of evil.

  He was still young then, powerful
—wickedly handsome and arrogant to the point of insanity, daring to violate this house of peace. The scars on his limbs were visible to all. Her sight told her of worse hidden under his all-black pall, and traces of wound fever still lingered in his too-bright eyes, but his many jousts with death had given him no humility. He reeked of both cruelty and ruthlessness, but so much cruelty that the other hardly mattered. If he so chose, he could wield the fearsome blessing of his god to destroy everyone in the abbey single-handedly.

  "You are in charge of this brothel?" He had a magnificent voice, she recalled, probably the most melodious male voice she had ever heard.

  "I am the Eldest of the Witnesses, yes. You are the light of Weru on Vigaelia."

  "I need your wisdom."

  She could smell the bloodlust on him and fully expected to die. "The only wisdom I will give you, Fist, is that the best warriors never need to fight. Use your strength to keep peace, not make war. Holy Demern enjoins us that the weak should be protected, not oppressed."

  "Demern? Weru is my god!" Stralg grabbed up a folded, completed web and ripped it in a fearsome demonstration of physical strength. "I came for wisdom, Eldest! Not platitudes. The Heroes of Weru are divided. They squabble over dogma, over personal ambition—even over political trivia, for when the merchants of a city covet the trade of another, they send their Werists to rend other Werists. I will unify the cult."

  The Eldest remained silent, praying for courage to bear whatever might happen. There were very few men in Bergashamm, none of them fighters, and Stralg had sealed the abbey.

  "All Werists will be loyal to me," he said. "I will appoint governors to rule the cities, and I will set my brothers as satraps over them. They will rule all Vigaelia in my name. Then we shall have peace, not war. You must approve. You will assist."