Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04 Read online

  A determination which seemed to falter suddenly, seemed almost to fail altogether; Julianne saw her forehead suddenly slick with sweat, heard a groan escape her lips. But she set her jaw, closed her eyes, rallied to try again; and Marron's eyelids fluttered open, he gazed about him vaguely, tried to speak.

  'Marron.' That was Elisande's voice as Julianne had never heard it before, high and tight and demanding. 'Take control of the Daughter, make it open a gateway to the land of the djinn.'

  He mumbled something that Julianne couldn't catch. Elisande heard it, though, and replied.

  'You can, and you must. For your life, and ours. Only for a little while; Julianne will go through, and bring back a stone. With that, we can win our freedom and rake you out of here. Do it, Marron, do it now...'

  And astonishingly, almost miraculously - because perhaps there was not yet an end to miracles after all, when a boy so racked could even understand what she was saying, let alone find the will and the strength to obey her - Marron did it.

  It was a poor, weak job that he made of it, reminding Julianne forcefully of his early efforts to control the Daughter, under Morakh’s tutelage: a twisted, shifting frame and the smoky red of it a sullen crimson glare, as though it were remembering rebellion and had only the outward habit of obedience to hold it still.

  Julianne gazed at the narrow gleam of gold that struck through the centre of the Daughters frame, the portal to the other world. Elisande wanted her to go through there; and she would, of course she would, because her one friend asked her to and her other friend needed her to, and either one of those would have been enough. The two together were imperative.

  And yet she couldn't help remembering those early trials, when desert creatures had died and died again, as Marron failed and failed again to hold the gateway open against the wild nature of the Daughter. Even if he managed to stretch it wide enough to let her through - and it was far from that as yet, barely wide enough to pass her hand and still her hips' height from the ground, far too high to jump when just to touch the rim of it was deadly - could she trust him to hold it so while she went and returned, not to lose control and let it close while she was yet in the land of the djinn, or -worse — when she was halfway through the gate and would die as those desert rats had died, in screaming terror?

  No: one glance at his face confirmed that she couldn't trust him so far, she couldn't trust him at all. Elisande was struggling against whatever had infected him; Marron seemed to have given up already. Even his blood was sluggish as it dribbled from his arm. Perhaps Elisande should have cut him deeper, let him bleed some more ...

  Elisande had her head down beside Marron's now, her mouth at his ear, whispering, whispering. His eyes opened, his gaze seemed to focus — and abrupdy there it was, gateway and frame, solid-seeming and all Julianne need do was walk across the cell and step through into that golden summoning light...

  Except that the 'ifrit moved first and moved fast, before she could force her unwilling feet to do it. It half scuttled and half flowed, losing its insect shape even before it reached the Daughter, pouring through the portal like a long thick sinuous ribbon of smoke.

  Julianne stared in wonder, in amazement, once more astonished beyond words; distantly she heard Elisande's voice, exhausted and triumphant and still demanding more.

  'Close the gateway, Marron. Quickly, let it go, it wants to anyway. Good,' as the frame dissolved and the Daughter assumed its more natural shape, a veiled monstrosity not so very different from the 'ifrit, only so much harder to see or understand. 'Good boy, you've been wonderful, you've saved us all. Now, one thing more. I can't keep you awake much longer, and I don't think you should sleep while that thing's free, it needs you keeping an eye on it. Besides, you've bled too much already, you need all your strength if you're going to get well again. Will you take it back for me, Marron?'

  'It hurts,' he said, clear enough this time, his voice sharp with dread.

  'I know it does, love - but it keeps you alive, I think. It stops you sinking. You have to do it, Marron, you have to take it back. Just for a while now, till we can get you to Rudel. He'll be able to help, better than I can. I promise

  Slowly, with what seemed to be reluctance on both sides — as if the Daughter relished a return to battle no more than Marron did - the half-seen monster shifted to smoke as if in echo of the 'ifrit, and slipped back into Marron's blood. He writhed, and his mouth gaped open in a soundless scream; Elisande bent low above his head, and Julianne thought she was weeping even as she struggled to soothe him.

  At last he lay still and she looked up again, dragging her sleeve across her face. 'He's gone again,' she said. 'It was all I could do, to help him into unconsciousness. We have to get him to Rudel.'

  'What if the 'ifrit comes back?'

  Elisande laughed harshly. 'It won't. I don't think it can, they can't move between the worlds the way the djinn do, they need a gateway. That's why I did this, to give it an opportunity to flee.'

  'I don't understand, I thought you wanted me to go, you said so ...'

  'I was lying, sweet. I hoped it would be scared by the threat of a stone, scared enough to run. Just as well that it was, I wouldn't have known what to do with the stone if you'd brought one. You had to be ready, though, it had to sense a real danger.'

  'It didn't happen, though, I didn't go ...'

  'Because the 'ifrit fled, it didn't happen. They don't see the future exactly, only possible courses. It saw what I wanted it to see, a future where it would be at risk; that was enough. Now come on, let's get out of here.'

  'How? We can carry Marron between us, but there's still Morakh, and all those other people. And Blaise, shouldn't we look for him?'

  'No. I told you, Julianne, Blaise is one of them. But leaving isn't a problem, now the 'ifrit has gone. Esren!'

  She called out and the djinni was instandy there, shimmering brightly in the haze of blue.

  'Esren, take us to Rudel. Through the gate or over the wall, I don't care. Whichever's faster. You'll be all right, won't you, Julianne? If we meet Morakh on the way, we've each got a knife for him.'

  Julianne was less troubled by Morakh than by the ride, but she'd endured worse these last weeks, with friends and enemies both. She swallowed, nodded, said, 'I'll cope. Let's hurry.'

  He had forgotten his name and any sense of purpose, until the prisoner gave them back to him. He had forgotten almost everything, including how to think or why he should. He still understood the meanings of words and he knew how to obey, he could follow orders, but he had no other use for language and so he'd ceased to use it, even inside his head.

  Until he had been told to take bread and water to the cell, and give it to the girl there. That he'd done; but as he did it she had said a word, Blaise, and he'd remembered it to be his name.

  ‘I am Blaise, he'd thought; and that thought had stayed with him even after he'd bolted the cell door and come away.

  Before it had had time to fade and lose itself in silence, he'd caught a glimpse of his face reflected in a barrel of water as he stooped to drink as he'd been told to.

  I am Blaise, and I am a man.

  There were others behind him, waiting their turn at the water; he looked at them and saw that they were not Blaise, not him. Some were men, like him but not the same; others were women and others children, boys and girls. He didn't know their names, only that they were not Blaise, not him. Nor did they know that he was Blaise; neither did he tell them.

  The prisoner in the cell had been a girl. He remembered that, though it was past now. She had gifted him his name, she had known and remembered it. Perhaps he might remember hers if he tried, if he had reason to try. He thought that he might remember her face, as she had remembered his.

  He was sent to climb steps, to stand upon a height and watch. As he climbed, he saw walls and towers all around and knew that he was in a castle. He had been in other castles before this. He remembered one in particular, a greater castle than this was, and he th
ought the girl had been there also, though she was not a prisoner then. She had been in his charge, though; because he was Blaise, and she had called him sergeant then, and he had called her my lady, although her name was Julianne.

  I am Blaise, and I am a man; I was a sergeant, and I had charge of the lady Julianne...

  He stood on the wall above the gate, and watched the road below as he had been ordered. For a while nothing moved below, while thoughts and memories wandered almost randomly through his mind. Then as the sun set he saw distant figures coming up from the town, a small cluster, three people carrying a fourth. They came to the gate and no one followed them.

  ‘I am Blaise, and I am on guard here, as I have been elsewhere; though I do not serve now those that I served before. I do not serve the lady Julianne. She is a prisoner here, and I serve those who have imprisoned her.

  They had imprisoned her with a demon. He had seen it in the cell, but at the time he could not recall what manner of thing it was. Now he knew. It was black and shaped of cruelty, with eyes of fire.

  There were two men he served in this castle. One he had followed here, but the other gave the orders now: feed the prisoner, watch the road. He remembered the words and he remembered the meaning, but they were different memories. That one gave his orders in a language that Blaise did not understand, and yet he knew what to do each time. The words had a shape in his ears, and another shape in his mind.

  He remembered fear, but not how it felt; he could not feel it.

  In the dark, he saw many points of light that glittered and moved together outside the town. He had seen such things before. They would be torches, carried by men. When they began to stream along the road, he knew that an army rode against the castle.

  He watched as he had been told to, and saw the army come; he saw its fires leap to life around the walls, he saw shadows of men at every fire and tents set up beyond. He remembered the word for this; it was called a siege.

  When he was called down, he went in obedience, because he could remember no other way to act.

  There were many people in the yard behind the gates. The lady Julianne was not among them. She was in her cell, he remembered, with the demon. He remembered pity but not how it felt, he could not feel it.

  These were all the people who had followed the man to the castle. Blaise had been one among them then; now he thought he was not, because he was remembering so much.

  The man who had led them here - they had called him the Preacher, he remembered, when they had had voices they could use and words to fill them - that man stood close to the gates, racing the gathered people.

  The other, the one who gave his orders in a tongue that Blaise could not speak, that man was not here. This one did not speak at all, any more; he had no need to. His will was their will. It might as well have been the will of the world, and perhaps it was.

  It made no difference how much Blaise was remembering; he couldn't remember how not to follow the Preachers will.

  ‘ am Blaise, I was a sergeant, I served the lady Julianne because it was my duty; now I am Blaise and it doesn't matter, I serve the Preacher because . .. because I serve the Preacher, because I do.

  He walked to the first of the people where they stood together, because it was the Preacher's will that he should do so. He was vaguely aware of another man on the other side of the group doing the same as he did, pressing his lips against the lips of the person he faced.

  This one was a woman. He remembered kissing in homage, as a sign of fealty, he remembered kissing in desire, in passion, though he could not remember how that felt. This was neither the one thing nor the other, not a kiss at all. Their open mouths met, and he felt not warm breath but the touch of something cold, a chill pass from her to him.

  The woman screamed.

  Blaise remembered pain, though not how it felt; he thought the woman was remembering now, and feeling too. He watched her subside, he watched her roll and thresh on the ground and remembered another word, remembered agony.

  Then he moved on, to the next in line. This was a man, an old man; after Blaise had done that thing that was not kissing, after the slip of cold had passed between them, the man stared, choked, collapsed in silence.

  Blaise moved on.

  Men and women, and children: for those Blaise had to bend low to touch his mouth to theirs. From each he claimed a chilly breath, and each one fell when that was done. Some screamed, some bled; most did neither.

  Fess did neither, when Blaise came to him and knew his face, and remembered his name but could not speak it.

  He remembered another word, which was death. He left Fess among the dead, and moved on.

  The sense of coldness grew beneath his tongue like a swelling, chilling tumour - unless it was within his tongue, he wasn't sure. He was conscious of the weight, the strength of it in his mouth as though it were solid, hard-shelled, and each sliver that he took wrapped another skin around it.

  He thought it was good that there were two of them reaping this harvest, claiming souls for the Preacher. One man might never bear so many. He had been sick, he had been drunk, he had been overburdened and exhausted; once he had smoked a herb that had kept him erect and urgent throughout the night, for all that two separate women could do about it. He remembered all of those, and none had been like this. The chill was in his mouth, but the power of it filled his body from skin to skin, throughout. Filled and almost overfilled: one more, two more and he thought he might burst entirely, like a blood pudding badly cooked and erupted from its casing. He thought he was a vessel, a jug top-full and fit to spill.

  He walked, and could barely believe that he was doing that. Like a storm that must break, he thought that he should pour and thunder across the land, not step with these impossible legs, one pace and then another and balance in between.

  He took another soul, and there was only one left and the other man took that one.

  All the yard was crowded with dead and dying, or so he thought them, all those people who had been ferries, carriers to their small fragment of what was in him now. And what he held was only half of what they'd brought between them; and he thought it could rive the world if it were let loose, and he had no way to contain it.

  He remembered dread, but not how it felt; he could not feel it.

  He and the other went to the gates, where the Preacher wished them to be. They slid the beam aside and drew them open — high heavy gates, he could have moved them with a finger, he did move his leaf with a single, casual wrench that hauled it almost off its hinges - and then fell in behind the Preacher as he walked forward, out of the castle's dark shelter and into the gaze, the glare, the bristling suspicion of the enemy.

  He remembered fear but not how it felt, he couldn't feel it. Magister Fulke had frightened him, he remembered suddenly, both in his person and in his demands; he thought that this should frighten him too, at least as much. If he'd ever been closer to death, he hadn't remembered it yet.

  There were men all about him, men of the desert, those he had fought all his life. They were hostile and watchful, and more than their suspicion brisded; scimitar-points and arrow-points tracked from every side, following the Preacher, the other man, himself every step of their way from the castle gates to the tent of their enemy.

  I am Blaise, I was a sergeant and I served the lady Julianne. This I remember. Now I serve the Preacher, and I cannot remember why...

  Neither did he understand how, exactly: only that he carried something in his mouth that was not himself, nor any part of the Preacher. It lived, he thought, in its own cold way; it had lived in all those people and now it lived in himself and in another, and soon perhaps it would be whole and free.

  He did think of it as one thing, however many fragments it had made; not like a nest of bees or a school of fish that swarm or swim together but are still separate creatures, rather something mythical and monstrous that could shatter at will and reform, like ice-shards melting and running into a single pool of water.
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  All the people he had drawn it from were dead now. It would be drawn out of him soon, he thought, and then supposed that he would die also. That was something else that ought to frighten him, and did not. He couldn't find the place where fear lived inside him, though he had been a fearful man, he was sure.

  He remembered how frightened he had been in that strange land that Magister Fulke had sent him to. He thought of it as the heart of the sun: everything had been hot and golden, even the water, and there was no other sun in the sky, so where else could it be?

  He remembered how he had got there, by means of a lighted candle and a few muttered words that he thought were a demon-spell, that the Magister said were a prayer. Now that he was remembering so much, the words burned in his mind, in the Magister's voice repeating them over and over until he was amazed that he had forgotten them at all, or remembered anything else first.

  He still had the candle, too. He'd carried that beneath his robe for safety, against his skin in case he lost his pack, as he had done somewhere in the time that he'd forgotten, the great gap when even his name had been left behind until the lady Julianne gave it back to him.

  He could feel the candle now, pressing against his belly like a reminder of the terror that he'd felt when he had lighted it and said the words and found himself in that dreadful sun-country. The taste of terror was gone, but he could still remember the fact of it. It had overwhelmed him then, and he thought it ought to be doing the same now as he followed the Preacher into the enemy's camp with death in his tongue, death threatened on all sides and treachery to come. He was sure of very little, but he was sure of that. He remembered truce, he remembered parley, but this was something entirely other.

  He might have cried a warning even to his enemies, do not trust the Preacher— but his mouth was full of evil and he could not speak.

  They were taken to a tent behind the ring of fires. The tent was large and bright with lamps, warmed by a brazier. It was furnished simply, rugs and a wood-framed cot, no more.

  Half a dozen men stood to greet them as they entered, as their guard dispersed around the tent walls, still with arrows nocked and scimitars drawn.