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‘Everybody else just sees those squiggles that look like some meaningless decoration?’
‘Didn’t I already say that?’
‘What would happen if I showed it to Ghend – or Pekhal, or Khnom?’
‘The screams would probably be very loud. The sight of the Knife causes unbearable pain to the agents of Daeva.’
‘Well, now,’ he said, grinning. ‘Maybe I’d better not use the Knife to cut bacon with, then.’
‘You wouldn’t!’
‘Only teasing, Em. That Knife’s going to be very useful, I think. I believe I’ll keep it very close.’
‘Sorry, pet. You aren’t the one who’s supposed to carry it.’
‘Who is?’
‘Probably Eliar.’
‘Are you absolutely sure I can control him? He is a professional killer, Em, so the first thing he’s likely to do if I hand him the Knife is stab me in the belly with it.’
‘There aren’t really any absolutes in life, Althalus.’
‘Oh, thanks, Em,’ he said sarcastically.
‘It’s a safe wager. The chance that he’ll kill you is about the same as the one for the sun coming up in the west this morning.’
‘I suppose I’d risk a little money on that one. Why don’t we wake him up and have him read to us?’
‘Let him sleep. After he reads the Knife, we’ll find out where we’re supposed to go next, and we’ll have to leave immediately. Let’s not start wandering around in the dark.’
He shrugged. ‘You’re the one in charge, Em.’ Then he looked at her curiously. ‘What did you do to Andine to bring her around? She didn’t really want to sell Eliar to me.’
‘I persuaded her to love me more than she hated him.’
‘I thought you couldn’t do that sort of thing out here.’
‘I didn’t create her love, pet. All I did was encourage it. Andine’s very young and very passionate. She loves – and hates – with her blood and bones, and she loves even more intensely than she hates. All I had to do to unleash her love was to be adorable. I’m an expert at that, if you’ll recall.’
‘I still think you’re cheating, Em.’
‘No, not really. Andine’s very pretty, and she smells nice. She’s soft and warm, and that voice of hers throbs like a bell. She’s very easy to love, and she responds to love with love of her own. I didn’t cheat her, Althalus. I did love her – and I still do.’
‘I thought you were supposed to love only me.’
‘What a ridiculous idea. Just because I love her, it doesn’t mean that I love you less. My love is boundless, you know.’
‘But now you’ve managed to sneak away from her, and that means that I’ve swindled her out of Eliar, the Knife and you – all in the same day. I really think we should get out of here, Em – almost immediately.’
‘She won’t wake up until morning; I’ve seen to that. When she does wake up, the first thing she’ll do is search her whole palace for me. The idea of sending out her soldiers won’t come to her until later.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Trust me.’
Eliar woke up just before dawn, and he’d evidently forgotten that he was securely attached to the tree, because he started struggling with his chain before he was fully awake.
‘Stop that!’ Althalus barked sharply. ‘You’ll hurt yourself.’
Eliar quit fighting. He held up one of his wrists and jingled the chain. ‘You don’t need to keep me locked up any more,’ he said. ‘I thought it over last night, and if you really do have an agreement with my chief, I’ll do what you tell me to do. If you’re lying about it, you’ll have to answer to him.’
‘Now you’re starting to make some sense,’ Althalus said approvingly. ‘I thought I might have to rattle your teeth a little bit before you started to get the point.’
‘I’m a good soldier, and I follow my chief’s orders. I don’t have to get any points or understand anything. I just have to do what I’m told to do.’
‘I think we’ll get along just fine’, Althalus said. ‘Hold out your hands. Let’s get rid of those silly chains.’
Eliar held out his wrists, and Althalus freed him.
Eliar stood up, stretching and yawning. ‘I didn’t sleep too well,’ he said. ‘Those stupid chains jingled and rattled every time I moved. What am I supposed to call you? Sergeant, maybe? I won’t call you “Master”, no matter what you do to me.’
If you ever call me “Master”, I’ll braid all your fingers and toes together. My name’s Althalus. Why don’t you call me that?’
‘Is that really your name? There’s an old story in our clan about a man named Althalus.’
‘I know. Chief Albron thought it was just a coincidence, but he was wrong.’ Althalus made a wry face. ‘My name’s about the only part of the story your people got right. The rest of it’s the biggest lie I’ve heard in my whole life – and I’ve heard some very big lies in my time. Let’s get it right out into the open, Eliar. I am the one who robbed Gosti Big Belly about twenty-five hundred years ago, but Gosti didn’t have any gold in his strongroom, just copper and a little brass. He wanted people to believe that he was the richest man in the world, so he spread some wild lies about how much gold I’d stolen from him. You wouldn’t believe how much trouble that caused me.’
‘Nobody can live that long,’ the boy scoffed.
‘I didn’t think so myself, but Emmy cured me of that. Let’s stick to the point here. Can you read?’
‘Warriors don’t waste their time on that nonsense.’
‘There’s something you have to read.’
‘I just told you that I don’t know how, Althalus. You’ll have to read it to me.’
‘It won’t work if we do it that way.’ Althalus took the Knife out from under his belt and held it out to Eliar. He pointed at the complex engraving on the blade. ‘What does this say?’ he asked.
‘I can’t read. I told you that.’
‘Look at it, Eliar. You can’t read it if you don’t look.’
Eliar looked at the leaf-shaped blade, and he jerked his head back, startled. ‘It says “Lead”!’ he exclaimed. ‘I can actually read it!’ Then he shrank back as the song of the Knife touched him.
‘Pretty, isn’t it?’ Althalus said.
Emmy had been sitting nearby, watching. She rose and came over to where they were seated. She looked very closely at Eliar, who was still staring at the Knife with a befuddled expression. ‘Tell him to do something, Althalus,’ she suggested. ‘Let’s make sure that you can control him before you give him the Knife.’
Althalus nodded. ‘Stand up, Eliar,’ he said.
The boy immediately scrambled to his feet. He swayed a bit and put one hand to the side of his head. ‘It made me a little dizzy,’ he confessed.
‘Dance,’ Althalus told him.
Eliar started to jig, his feet pattering on the ground.
‘Stop.’
Eliar quit dancing.
‘Put both hands up over your head.’
‘Why are we doing this?’ the boy asked, raising his hands.
‘Just making sure that it works. You can put your hands down. Did you notice anything peculiar just now?’
‘You kept telling me to do things that were sort of silly,’ Eliar replied.
‘If they seemed silly, why did you do them?’
‘I’m a soldier, Althalus. I always do what the man in charge tells me to do. If he tells me to do silly things, he’s the one who’s silly, not me.’
‘That sort of takes a lot of the fun out of this, doesn’t it, Em?’ Althalus said aloud. ‘Did the Knife force Eliar to jump around, or was it just his training?’
Eliar gave Emmy a surprised look. ‘How did your cat get away from Andine?’ he asked curiously.
‘She’s sort of sneaky.’
‘Andine’s going to be very angry about that. Maybe we should leave in sort of a hurry – right after breakfast.’
‘Are you hungry?’
‘I’m always hungry, Althalus.’
‘Why don’t we eat, then?’ Althalus held the Knife out to the boy. ‘Here. You’re the one who’s supposed to carry this. Tuck it under your belt and don’t lose it.’
Eliar put his hands behind his back. ‘You should probably know that I was planning to kill you last night before we got to know each other. You might want to think it over a little before you just hand me back my knife like that.’
‘You aren’t going to try to kill me now, though, are you?’
‘No. Not now.’
‘Why not?’
‘You’re the man in charge, Althalus. Your arrangement with Chief Albron sort of makes you my sergeant. A good soldier never tries to kill his sergeant.’
‘Then I haven’t got a thing to worry about. Take the Knife, Eliar, and let’s eat.’
‘What a great idea,’ Eliar said enthusiastically, tucking the Knife under his belt.
‘Bacon? Or maybe ham?’
‘Whichever one you can make the quickest.’
Althalus made some ham and a loaf of black bread. Then he produced a very large cup of milk.
Eliar started to eat as if he hadn’t had anything for a week.
Althalus made more. ‘How long can he keep this up?’ he silently asked Emmy.
‘I’m not really certain,’ her reply came back. She watched Eliar eat with a slightly bemused look in her large green eyes. ‘See if you can distract him enough to get him to show me the Knife. I need to find out where we’re supposed to go next.’
‘Eliar,’ Althalus said, ‘you can keep chewing, but Emmy needs to take a quick look at your Knife.’
Eliar mumbled something.
‘Don’t talk with your mouth full,’ Althalus told him. ‘Just take the Knife out from under your belt and show it to her.’
Eliar shifted the chunk of ham he’d been eating to his left hand, wiped the grease off his right hand on the grass, and drew out his Knife. Still chewing, he held the Knife out to Emmy.
She glanced at it briefly. ‘Awes,’ she said.
‘Isn’t it in ruins?’ Althalus asked.
‘So?’
‘Just thought I’d mention it, that’s all. I’ll go saddle my horse.’
Emmy had gone back to watching Eliar eat. ‘There’s no real hurry, Althalus,’ her silent response sounded slightly amused. ‘From the look of things, our boy here’s just getting started.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘Just exactly where’s this war?’ Eliar asked as he trotted along beside Althalus’ horse, ‘and what kind of people are we going to be fighting?’
‘War?’ Althalus asked.
‘People don’t rent soldiers just for show, Althalus. I’m fairly sure you didn’t go to all the trouble of getting me away from Andine just because you were lonesome. Sergeant Khalor always told us that we should find out as much about the people we’re going to be fighting as we possibly can.’
‘Your sergeant’s a very wise man, Eliar.’
‘We all looked up to him – even though he could be awfully picky about details sometimes. I’ll swear that he can talk about one speck of rust on a sword for half a day.’
‘Some soldiers are like that, I suppose,’ Althalus said. ‘I don’t get all that excited about it myself. A rusty sword kills somebody as well as a polished one does.’
‘We’re going to get along just fine,’ Eliar said, grinning broadly. ‘Now, then, who am I supposed to fight?’
‘The war we’re involved with isn’t exactly like an ordinary war – at least not yet. We haven’t quite reached the point of armies and battlefields.’
‘We’re still choosing up sides?’
Althalus blinked, and then he laughed. ‘That might just come closer to what we’re doing than anything I’ve heard so far.’
‘Watch your mouth,’ Emmy’s thought had a slight edge to it.
Althalus laughed again. ‘That’s why we absolutely had to get our hands on the Knife, Eliar,’ he told the boy. ‘It’s the only thing that can tell us who’s on our side. The ones we want can read it. Others can’t. Emmy can read more of it than you and I can, and it tells her where we’re supposed to go to recruit the people we’ll need.’
‘She’s not really a cat, then, is she? My mother’s got a cat, but all her cat does is eat and sleep and chase mice. If Emmy’s that important, you took an awful chance when you traded her for the Knife the way you did. Andine’s a very strange little lady. You’re lucky she didn’t chain Emmy to her bed-post.’
‘The way she had you chained to that pillar in her throne room?’
Eliar shuddered. ‘That was a real bad time for me, Althalus. The way she used to look at me gave me the wibblies. She’d sit there for hours playing with my knife and staring right straight at me. Women are very strange, aren’t they?’
‘Oh, yes, Eliar. Indeed they are.’
Shortly before noon, Althalus noticed a farmstead some distance back from the road they were following, and he turned into the lane that led toward the house. ‘Let’s get you mounted, Eliar,’ he said.
‘I can keep up with you on foot, Althalus.’
‘Possibly, but we’ve got a long way to go. I’ll talk with the farmer here and see what he’s got to offer.’
While Althalus spoke with the seedy-looking farmer, Eliar carefully examined the farm horses in the large corral behind the farmhouse. ‘This one’, he said, rubbing the ears of a large sorrel horse.
The farmer started to object, but he changed his mind when Althalus jingled his purse.
‘You paid him too much,’ Eliar said as they rode away from the farm.
‘The money doesn’t really mean anything.’
‘Money always means something – unless you just made it up in the same way you make up the food we eat.’ Then he looked sharply at Althalus. ‘You did, didn’t you?’ he demanded. ‘You just reared back, waved your hand, and there was a great big pile of gold, wasn’t there?’
‘No, as a matter of fact, I –’ Althalus stopped, his eyes suddenly going very wide. ‘Can I do that?’ he sent his startled question at Emmy, who was dozing in the hood of his cloak.
‘Probably, yes.’
‘Then why did you make me dig it up?’
‘Honest work’s good for you, pet. Besides, it doesn’t exactly work that way. Food’s one thing, but minerals are quite a bit different.’
‘Why?’
‘They just are, Althalus. There’s certain balance involved that we shouldn’t tamper with.’
‘Would you like to explain that?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
They rode hard for the next couple of days until they were some distance away from Osthos, and then they slowed to give their horses a bit of rest. The plains of Treborea, drought-stricken and barren under the hot summer sun, were depressing, so Althalus passed the time telling Eliar slightly elaborated stories about his adventures back in the days before he’d gone to the House at the End of the World. Like all Arums, Eliar enjoyed good stories, and he was exactly the kind of audience that warmed Althalus’ heart.
Althalus did cheat just a little, though, as they rode along. Every time Eliar’s attention started to wander, a chicken leg or a chunk of still-warm bread would immediately recapture it. The arrangement worked out rather well, actually.
Emmy, however, found long naps much more interesting than the stories, for some reason.
Eliar more or less took over the care of their horses when they set up camp each night. Althalus produced the hay and oats their mounts needed, and not infrequently he was obliged to provide water for them as well. Eliar did the actual work, though, and the horses seemed quite fond of him. All in all, Althalus rather liked the arrangement.
They passed the walled city of Leupon a few days later, crossed the River Kanthon, and entered the lands of the Equeros. The lake country was not as parched as the plains of Perquaine and Treborea had been, and the population there had not been forced to huddle around slowly diminishing water holes or along river banks.
It took them about ten days to cross Equero, and then they entered mankind’s ancestral homeland of Medyo. Five days later they reached the place where the River Medyo forked and where the ruins of the city of Awes was located.
‘What happened here?’ Eliar asked as they stood on the west bank of the river waiting for the barge that – for a price – ferried travelers across to the ruins.
‘There was a war, I’m told,’ Althalus replied. ‘The way I understand it, back in those days the priesthood ruled all of Medyo and the surrounding lands. They got a little too greedy finally, and the army decided that the world might be a nicer place without so many priests, so they marched in to see if they could arrange that. The priests had an army of their own, and those two armies had some extended discussions in the streets of Awes.’
‘It must have been a long, long time ago. They’ve got full-grown trees standing in the streets over there.’
‘Althalus,’ Emmy’s voice murmured, ‘I need to talk with Eliar directly, so I’m going to borrow your voice. I think it might be easier if he’s holding me while we do this.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Just do it, Althalus’, she replied. ‘Don’t keep asking silly questions.’
Althalus took her up and held her out to their youthful companion. ‘Here’, he said. ‘Emmy wants to talk to you. Hold her.’
Eliar put his hands behind his back. ‘I think I’d rather not’, he said.
‘You’d better get over that. Take her, Eliar.’
‘I don’t understand cat-talk, Althalus,’ Eliar protested, taking Emmy with obvious reluctance.
‘I’m sure she’ll make you understand.’
‘Get out of the way, Althalus,’ Emmy’s voice commanded. ‘Count trees or something. I’m going to be using your voice, so don’t interfere.’ Then Althalus heard his own voice saying, ‘Can you hear me, Eliar?’ His voice seemed lighter, and it had a higher pitch.
‘Of course I can hear you, Althalus’, Eliar replied. ‘You’re only a few feet away. Your voice sounds a little odd, though.’
‘I’m not Althalus, Eliar,’ the voice coming from Althalus’ lips said. ‘I’m just using his voice. Look at me, not at him.’
Eliar looked down at Emmy with astonishment.
Emmy wrinkled her nose. ‘You need a bath,’ she said.
‘I’ve been a little busy. Ma’am,’ the boy replied.
‘You can pet me, if you’d like,’ she suggested.
‘Yes, Ma’am.’ Eliar began to stroke her.
‘Not quite so hard.’
‘Sorry, Ma’am.’
‘He’s such a nice boy’, Emmy murmured in her borrowed voice. ‘All right, Eliar, listen to me very carefully. There’s a distinct chance that we’ll encounter enemies over there on the other side of the river. What do you do when you meet an enemy?’
‘Kill him, Ma’am.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Emmy!’ Althalus overrode her usurpation of his voice.
‘Stay out of this, Althalus. This is between the boy and me. Now then, Eliar, we’ll be meeting priests over there. I want you to show the Knife to every one of them we meet. Can you pretend to be stupid?’
Eliar made a rueful kind of face. ‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘I’m a country boy from the highlands of Arum. We invented stupid.’
‘I’d really prefer it if you called me “Emmy”, Eliar; we don’t have to be so formal. This is the way I want you to do this: when we talk to a priest, put on your best Arum expression and hold the Knife out for him to see. Then you say, “Excuse me, yer priestship, but kin you tell me what’s wrote on this here Knife?”’
‘Probably not with a straight face, Emmy,’ Eliar said, laughing. ‘Is there really anybody in the whole world who’s that simple-minded?’
‘You’d be surprised, Eliar. Practice saying it until you can do it without coming down with the giggles. Now, most of the priests won’t be able to make any sense out of what’s written on the Knife. They’ll either admit that they can’t read it, or they’ll pretend to be too busy to take the time. The one we’re looking for will read it in exactly the same way you did when you read it, and the Knife will sing to you as soon as he reads it aloud.’
‘I sort of thought that was what was going to happen, Emmy. What’s this got to do with enemies, though?’
‘If you do happen to show the Knife to an enemy, he’ll scream and try to cover his eyes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the sight of the Knife will hurt him – probably more than anything has hurt him in his entire life. As soon as somebody does that, drive the Knife right into his heart.’
‘All right, Emmy.’
‘No problems? No questions?’
‘No, Emmy, none at all. You’re in charge of things. If you tell me to do something, I’ll do it. Sergeant Khalor always told us that we’re supposed to obey orders immediately without asking any stupid questions, and your orders are really very simple. If somebody screams when I show him the Knife, he’ll be dead before the echo fades away.’
Emmy reached up one soft paw and stroked his cheek. ‘You’re such a good boy, Eliar,’ she purred.
‘Thank you, Emmy. I try my best.’
‘I hope you’ve been listening very carefully, Althalus. Maybe you should have taken some notes for future reference. It saves so much time when people know how to follow orders without all the endless discussion I get from some people I know.’
‘Can I have my voice back now?’
‘Yes, pet, you may. I’m done with it – at least for right now. I’ll let you know when I need it again.’
The barge took them across the west fork of the River Medyo, and they rode on into the ruins of the city. The priests who lived there wore cowled robes, for the most part, and they had built crude hovels among the ruins. There were some noticeable differences between the various groups of priests. Those who lived in the northern part of the ruins wore black robes, the ones in central Awes were robed in white, and the ones closest to the river fork wore brown. Althalus noted that they tended not to talk to each other very much – except to argue.
‘No, you’ve got it all wrong,’ a black-robed priest from the northern end of town was saying to a fat priest in a white robe. ‘The Wolf was in the ninth house when that happened, not the tenth.’
‘My charts don’t lie,’ the chubby priest replied hotly. ‘The sun had moved to the fourth house by then, and that definitely moved the Wolf to the tenth.’
‘What are they talking about?’ Althalus silently demanded of Emmy.
‘Astrology. It’s one of the cornerstones of religion.’
‘Which religion?’
‘Most of them, actually. Religion’s based on a desire to know what’s going to happen in the future. Astrologers believe that the stars control that.’
‘Are they right?’
‘Why would the stars care what happens here? Besides, most of the stars the priests argue about don’t actually exist any more.’
‘I think that one missed me, Em.’
‘The stars are fire, and fires eventually burn out.’
‘If they’re burned out, why are the priests still arguing about them?’
‘Because they don’t know that they’ve burned out.’
‘All they have to do is look, Em.’
‘It doesn’t quite work that way, Althalus. The stars are a lot farther away than people realize, and it takes a long time for their light to reach us. Probably about half of what you see when you look up at night isn’t really there any more. To put it another way, the priests are trying to predict the future by looking at the ghosts of dead stars.’
Althalus shrugged. ‘It gives them something to do, I suppose.’ He looked around at the ruined buildings and rubble-strewn streets. The robed and cowled priests were moving about singly or in small groups, but there were more conventionally dressed men in Awes as well. He saw one man who’d set up what appeared to be a shop next to a partially collapsed wall. The man had a rough table with pots, pans and kettles on it.
‘Welcome friends,’ the fellow said hopefully, rubbing his hands together. ‘Look and buy. Look and buy. I have the best pots and kettles in all of Awes, and my prices are the lowest you’ll find in any shop here.’
‘Be careful, Althalus,’ Emmy murmured. ‘That’s Khnom. He works for Ghend.’
‘Then Ghend knew that we were coming here?’
‘Maybe not. He might have just spread his agents out to watch for us. Fix Khnom’s face in your mind. We’ll probably run across him again.’
‘Was there anything in particular you were looking for, friend?’ the ostensible merchant asked. He was a small-sized man, and he seemed to be very careful not to look Althalus in the eye.