Back | Next
Contents

57

The ceremony was over. Alice had understood not a word of it, but the actions had been plain enough. Eleal, that silver-tongued ingenue, had now been installed as bishop of Thargvale or perhaps archbishop of the Vales. She had recovered from her shock and was already warming to her new role, accepting congratulations from the shield-bearers with matronly grace. Edward had certainly made some very odd decisions tonight. Pinky's face was a picture. Ursula's would rank as a whole art gallery. Even Julian had gone into a black sulk about something. With the fire shrunk to a few red embers, some subtle difference in the overgrown garden beyond the windows hinted that the eclipse had begun.

Edward must have given orders to start the feast, because people were leaving. He was standing by the door, speaking to each shield-bearer in turn, but his tone sounded cheerful enough, more like personal instructions than final farewells. He would not dispose of Cousin Alice quite so easily. She wanted to know what he was planning to do next, and she was not leaving until she found out, so there! She stood up and eased her stiffened limbs.

She peered up crossly at Julian's scowl. "What's the matter? Don't you think Eleal will make a good pope?"

He shrugged, not caring about that. "I wish I knew why he rejected the Thargian offer. And the way he did it! Dammit, Alice, an ephor is like a king or a president, one third of an absolute tyrant."

"I think I know why. I'll tell you if you promise not to repeat it."

Julian said, "Right-on!" too quickly. He obviously thought he did know the answer and she didn't.

She looked around. Edward wouldn't hear her. He was saying good-bye to Eleal at the door, but she was the last.

"It's the old problem of church and state. . . . This is isn't easy to put into words. I'm not sure Edward could, even. I think he was acting on instinct—"

"Instinct! Instinct? He's likely to get us all killed or enslaved with his bloody instinct."

"In a sense that almost doesn't matter." She wondered if she could ever explain to a man who couldn't see it already. Julian was a downright, earthy Anglo-Saxon. Edward was a realist too, but he also had a Celtic streak in him, an artistic undercurrent that defied logic. "The point is that this is the climax of everything he's worked for, yes? So even details are very important. What we saw tonight may become legend for thousands or millions of people. This was his night, his apotheosis almost, and he would not be seen currying favor from the Thargians."

"If you think that, then you're as mad as he is! This is Thargia, woman!"

It must be her turn to shrug, so she did. "I just don't think Edward saw that man as Ephor Kwargurk. I think he saw Pontius Pilate."

Julian's mouth opened. Then closed.

"He was irrelevant," she explained, "like Pilate. Sometimes military force just doesn't matter. Generals and armies are forced to dance to other tunes and serve purposes they cannot comprehend."

Julian was a former soldier. "That is the most ridiculous—" His eyes shifted to look over her shoulder.

She turned. Edward was approaching, but he wasn't looking at them, he was staring out the windows. He spoke as if one of them had said something.

"It's too late to ask questions."

Julian said, "But—"

"No. There's only faith left now." Edward glanced briefly at him and held out a hand, but his attention went back to the garden.

Julian ignored the hand. "Just tell me why—"

"No. Good-bye, Julian. Thank you." Edward put his arm around Alice as if to lead her away.

"Thank me for what? I haven't done a thing, and—"

"You will." Edward steered Alice over to the wall. "If you stand back here in the shadows you should be safe. Don't draw attention to yourself."

She put her hand over his. It was icy. His face was rigid.

"Edward! What's . . ." She grabbed his shoulders as he tried to leave. "What are you going to do now? Tell me!"

"You must have faith, too." He flashed her a grotesque smile and left her there, heading for the windows. His sort might die of fright, but it would be on its feet, doing its duty.

The ghastly green moonlight was fading fast. She folded her arms tightly around her and watched as he stepped over the sill. He strode through the weeds and brambles, hastening to the patch he had cleared earlier.

She had thought Julian was leaving, but he changed his mind and came and stood beside her. Neither spoke, but her hand found his to hold. She was grateful for the company.

Dimmer and dimmer grew the light. The night seemed to close in, growing colder as well as darker. Edward was standing with his arms folded, waiting, barely visible through the branches. Waiting for what? Clocks in the Vales were primitive contraptions. With no uniformly accepted standard time, how did one set up an appointment? Meet me when Trumb eclipses would do very well. Waiting for whom?

It could not be Zath. He would not have let her stay if he expected Zath. He did anticipate trouble or danger. No one had ever said that his campaign would be anything other than dangerous, but she had been thinking that the threat was still a few days off. The sudden urgency had caught her unaware. It could not possibly be Zath, the main event. It must be vital, or Edward would not have been so tense. She said a small prayer. Lord, two men I loved have been taken from me. Be with him and keep him safe.

Another man stood in the clearing, facing Edward and about ten feet from him. He was slim, dark haired. . . . He had no clothes on.

Julian sucked in air through his teeth. "Tion! It must be!"

Alice edged closer to his side. Cold and tension were making her shiver. That boy out there would freeze to death unless he was using mana to keep himself warm, or unless he wasn't really there at all, just some sort of moving picture.

The Liberator and the Youth might be exchanging words, but if so they were too soft to hear. Then another figure . . . This man was larger, husky even, decently clothed and black bearded. That must be Karzon, the Man. Two more people appeared almost simultaneously. They were only vague shapes, but they could have been a girl in a blue robe and a mature woman in a red. That was what the mythology of the Vales would dictate.

"It won't work!" Julian whispered.

"Sh!"

"No Visek, see! The Five can never all cooperate . . . been squabbling for centuries . . . won't trust each other, let alone a . . ." His voice trailed away.

What was being said out there in that unworldly meeting? Alice would give her front teeth to be allowed to eavesdrop. And where was the fifth, Visek? The Free had a legend that the Liberator had met with the Parent in Niol. As far as Alice knew, Edward himself had never described such a meeting. The story was attributed to Dosh—the gospel according to St. Dosh.

The light had almost gone when the node shimmered again and the gap in the circle was closed by two more figures. Their arrival showed only because they were wearing white or something close to it. Starlight glimmered on silver hair. Seven people—the Liberator and the Pentatheon.

"There!" she whispered. "He's got all of them!"

Julian snorted. "He'd be crazy to trust them. And why in hell should they trust him?"

"You think he's asking for their help? He wants to borrow their mana?"

"What else? But all he has to offer them in exchange is Zath removal, and they have to gamble that he'll pay them back afterward. They'll stick with the devil they know."

Alice did not reply. She had no idea, really, but she was confident that Edward had worked it out a long time ago, before he even started his crusade. He had gambled his life to arrive at this one point, so he would not let the Pentatheon cheat him out of everything he had won. Yet they must know he had his back against the wall. Events were rushing to a climax and if he needed their help, he needed it now or never. That was not a good bargaining position.

Have faith!

The darkness was total. This, above all, was the time when the reapers pursued their grisly work, when Zath might be distracted by the inflowing surges of mana. Was that another reason to choose the eclipse as the time of meeting? Starlight showed only as a gleam on rimy branches and on the walls around the courtyard. Whatever was happening, whatever was being negotiated, the scene was invisible and inaudible. She wanted to run out there and shout, "You can trust him!"

For Edward was trustworthy. An Englishman's word was his bond. That creed had been drummed into him all his life, and no one believed it more strongly than he did. If he borrowed mana on a promise of returning it later, then he would do exactly that, even if it killed him. He would repay every penny of it. Yet how could those age-old pseudogods ever believe that? He had set out to prove himself to them, but why should they believe? Far more likely, they would judge him to be what they were themselves—sly, devious players of the Great Game. The whole point of that game was to lie and cheat. It would be no fun at all if a promise could not be broken at will.

"This is crazy!" Julian muttered at her side. "They'll cross their hearts, but when the chips are down, they'll pull the plug on him and leave him holding the bag." Metaphors were never his strong suit.

"Wait!" she said.

They had no choice but to wait. Even the fire had disappeared. They stood in darkness, broken only by faint outlines of windows. She could not have found the door had she wanted to. Oh, what a wonderland this Alice had found! She did not belong here in the dark and cold, on another world, meddling in tumultuous events; she never had. She should return to her own place soon, as soon as possible, if indeed it was still possible at all, for the Service had collapsed. The old Church of the Undivided had been overthrown and Edward obviously intended his new church, whatever it would be called, to be a populist movement with little place for world-jumping elitist strangers. Go Home. She tried to frame a prayer in her mind, for the act of putting her fears and wants into words often clarified her thinking. First, let the good triumph here on Nextdoor. Let Edward survive, his purpose achieved. Go Home, yes—she did not belong here. Go Home with Edward . . . yes again, wonderful! If he still wanted her. His name was still on a murder warrant, but the trail was cold, and perhaps Miss Pimm could solve the matter anyway. Norfolk? The cottage? It would be spring there now. London was gorgeous in spring, and this first spring after the war it should blossom beyond imagining. But neither prospect thrilled her. Africa did; return to Nyagatha. The war was over; it should be possible. No warrant would find them there. Heat and starkly brilliant sunshine and the scenes of their childhood. That was really Home. Thy will be done, but if I had my dibs, Lord, it would be that.

The light had begun to return. The trees came first, then the roofs and the general shape of the courtyard. Soon she made out the ghostly glimmer of Visek's robes, the pallor of Tion's bare flesh. The circle was still there, still presumably negotiating—the Liberator and the six who made up the Five.

Tion sank gracefully to his knees. Mana rippled. Then more. Julian gasped. The node writhed with surges of power, wilder and wilder until reality itself seemed to twist and the house undulated. Karzon went down, then the Maiden, the Lady . . . and finally, slowly, the two who were together Visek. A silent thunderstorm of mana rolled through the courtyard, dim flickers of sepulchral color playing over the kneeling Pentatheon and the one triumphant figure looming over them.

"My god!"

Edward Exeter stood in the clearing and the paramount sorcerers of the Vales knelt before him, fulfilling the prophecy: "They shall bow their heads before him, they will spread their hands before his feet." Then, suddenly, everything vanished again into darkness, blacker even than before.

Alice and Julian had their arms around each other, although she could not recall who had started it. "He's done it! They have agreed to help!"

"Shush! And don't be so bloody sure! I wouldn't trust any one of that lot as far as I could throw a battleship."

The scene changed almost too fast to register, the Five gone and Edward trudging back to the windows. Alice ran forward to meet him as he stepped over the sill. She hugged him. He drooped in her arms like a man exhausted. There was no doubt now—he was shaking. Relief, of course!

"You did it!"

He sighed, leaning his head on her shoulder. "Think so," he mumbled.

"Oh, Edward!" There was nothing else to say. Just hug him, hold him.

He endured her embrace without returning it. She discovered she wanted to tell him to get a good night's sleep, so he wasn't the only one suffering from reaction. She had not realized how taut her nerves were. She clung as he made a halfhearted effort to break away.

"Things to do, Alice."

"But the worst is over, isn't it?"

He made a sound that was half a laugh and half a sob. "The worst hasn't even started."

She looked at him in alarm and did not like what she saw. His forehead was beaded with sweat like dew.

"What more? What happens now?" she demanded.

He shook his head. "Have faith, remember?" Then he did laugh, a bitter, hollow laugh. "What does it matter? Even if Zath wins, he can't stop what I've started. The Five can't. They've pushed their own theology so long that they have no idea how flexible faith can be. Even if I die tomorrow, some people will go on believing I brought death to Death in some mystical way. I am the resurrection, or something. They'll find a faith to fit."

"Stop that! You're going to fight and win."

He pulled free and straightened up to his full six feet. "Even if I do, what do you suppose they'll make of it all? What will the Church of the Liberator be like a hundred years from now? Religions don't spring up fully armed. They sprout, they grow, they change. They split off heretical sects and persecute them until the best creed wins." His voice was dangerously shrill. "As soon as the Caesars stopped torturing Christians, Christians tortured Christians. What would Jesus of Nazareth have thought of the Inquisition? What would Saint Paul have said to a Borgia Pope? Will the Free do that now? Or have I convinced them enough? Do they believe my lies about the Undivided? Have I convinced anyone? Who really believes in that hodgepodge god of mine?"

"I do."

"No, you don't!"

"Yes, I do! Details don't matter. The principle does. I believe a god sent you to them."

He studied her for a moment, as if trying to decide how serious she was. Then he forced a smile. "Wish I did, but thanks anyway." He kissed her.

Well! If that was the best kiss he could manage at his age, she ought to be ashamed of herself. She pulled him back to her and showed him what a real kiss was. Eventually he put his arms around her and cooperated clumsily.

Afterward he just said, "Oh!" For a monosyllable it seemed to convey an awful lot of meaning.

"You need lessons." She was breathless herself.

"Would you give me lessons?"

"Gladly, oh gladly!"

He glanced around the big, empty room. Julian had gone. Another man stood in the doorway, leaning limply against the jamb as if he had just run over Figpass. It was only Dosh, with his blond hair awry and some lurid welts across his face—how long had he been there? Why did little Dosh look so sinister, so ominous, waiting there?

Edward shuddered and broke free from her embrace. "Too late. Time to go."

"Not just yet!"

He took a step or two and stopped. He looked back unwillingly and bared his teeth in a snarl. "I have to go, Alice. Got a job to do. I promised. God knows I don't want it but I asked for it and I can't evade it now."

"What job? Promised what? Promised whom?"

"Pray for me," he whispered.

Then he turned and hurried over to join Dosh. The two of them went out together.

 

Back | Next
Framed