Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 02 (21 page)

           
“You tempt me,” Hattim groaned. “You
put words in my mouth, ”

           
“I take the words I find from your
soul,” came the response. “What I say to you, you have whispered to yourself.
Deny them! Tell me you do not want Ashrivelle. Tell me you do not covet the
White Palace.”

           
Hattim gazed with awful rapture into
the red-lit pits of the mage’s face and felt the answer tom from deep inside
him, from the lowermost depths of his being where he hid the truth.

           
“I cannot,” he admitted.

           
Taws’s laughter seemed to fill the
room and Hattim thought that surely his guards must hear it, that courtiers and
carls must momentarily burst armed through the door to slay the Messenger. If
he could be slain.

           
But no relief, no escape, came and
he could do nothing save face the veracity of the creature’s statements. It was
indeed as though Taws saw his most hidden, innermost secrets and held them up
stark before him.

           
“Then,” said the mage, “you cannot
deny that the Sisterhood is your enemy. And if those blue-robed whores are your
enemy, then so must be the one they follow. ”

           
“No,” Hattim moaned, afraid now for
his mortal soul.

           
“She cannot harm you,” Taws declared
negligently. “Beside my master she is as nothing—a pitiful woman. Would you
allow a woman to stand between you and your dream?”

           
“She is the Lady,” husked Hattim
fearfully.

           
“Ashar is Lord of the Fires,” Taws
rasped. “He is strong. He is power incarnate. He is the granter of dreams.”

           
“But ...” Hattim was dreadfully
afraid; and horribly fascinated. “Ashar lent his might to the Horde and the
Horde was defeated.”

           
“By Kedryn Caitin,” the mage
snarled, his eyes burning a brighter red as he spoke the name, “who is your
enemy and mine. It will not happen again.”

           
“They say Kedryn is the Chosen One,”
argued Hattim tremulously. “They say the Lady smiles upon him.”

           
“He is human—he can die,” Taws
responded. “I will have his soul for my master. Would you not enjoy his death?”

           
Again he struck directly to Hattim’s
deepest desires and the Galichian nodded: “I would.”

           
“Then are we not allies?” Taws
asked, his voice calmer, hideously persuasive. “Do we not seek the same ends?”

           
“You would see me in the White
Palace?” asked Hattim, wonderingly.

           
“I would put you there and give you
dominion over all the Kingdoms,” said Taws. “I would raise you higher than you
dare dream. Come, I will show you.”

           
He rose to his full height,
extending a hand toward the Lord of Ust-Galich, and Hattim felt the torpor
leave his body as he stared into the coals of that hellish gaze and reached out
to take the offered hand. He felt a shock tingle his arm, and for an instant
the hair on his head stood upright, then there was a moment of delirium in
which his senses spun and nausea swirled within his belly, only to fade as he
felt himself lifted, rising, floating above the floor of the little room,
drifting weightlessly, light as a dust meot, filled with a terrifying
anticipation.

           
It was dreamlike, yet all too real:
he could scarcely dare believe it, even as he knew it happened. He felt himself
drawn toward the shuttered window and winced as the hard oak confronted his
face. Then he was drifting through the wood, aware of its touch upon his naked
body, and out into the night, floating above Nyrwan, rising higher, carried by
the mage’s power upward into a sky scattered with stars.

           
He was vaguely surprised to find
that he felt no fear. Instead, confidence filled him, emanating from the
spectral figure that flew beside him, and he began to experience an
exhilaration as they rose toward the twinkling pinpricks that glittered against
the blue velvet panoply of the night. He saw Nyrwan below him, a huddle of
buildings no larger now than a child’s playthings, receding into darkness as he
felt Taws adjust their trajectory and they began to move southward. He saw that
they followed the course of the Idre, the river a moonlit ribbon glistening
against the aphotic land. Then, like stooping hawks, they were hurtling
downward and his heart lurched beneath his ribs, his eyes closing as he waited
for the impact of hard earth against yielding body.

           
It did not come and instead he heard
Taws command, “Open your eyes. 1 would not harm you.”

           
Obediently he forced his shuttered
lids ajar and saw that they hovered now above another riverside settlement,
boats rolling on the sway of the river, one of them recognizable as the
Vashti
, the tripartite crown of Andurel
on the pennant snapping fitfully at the masthead marking her as Darr’s craft.

           
“The king,” Taws put contempt in the
word, “sleeps yonder. Come.”

           
And Hattim was drawn forward, twin
of the wraith that led him, over the sleeping settlement to the walls of a
tavern hardly different from the one he had so recently left.

           
He swallowed nervously as they
drifted once more through solid wood to stand in a chamber where a man lay
asleep beneath rough sheets, the rumpled spillage of his thinning gray hair and
his slumber-eased features revealing him to be Darr.

           
“Do you see him?” Taws said, not
really asking a question. “How easy it would be to kill him now. How easy to
snuff out that weak life.”

           
Hattim stared at the sleeping figure
and turned his face slowly toward the mage. A question formed unbidden on his
lips, written loud in his eyes, and Taws chuckled, shaking his head.

           
“You begin to see what I can do for
you; but no, not yet. Were he to die now there would be procedures, rituals of
appointment that would not favor you. It is not yet time; that will come later,
when the moment is more propitious. Come.”

           
He raised his hand, carrying Hattim
with him as they floated back through the window and rose again into the sky,
rushing southward with ever increasing speed, faster and faster until the Idre
was a blur below them and it seemed to Hattim they must bum like falling stars.
Instead, they slowed after a while and the Galichian saw that the roofs of
Andurel spread before them, the walls of the White Palace albescent against the
backdrop of night.

           
Again they descended, invisible to
watchmen, traversing walls of stone and doors of wood as specters unencumbered
by corporeal limitation. They entered a chamber Hattim did not recognize until
he saw the great bed sheeted with silk and the cascade of wheat-golden hair
upon the pillow. Ashrivelle’s lips were parted, moist and full; inviting. One
slender arm lay atop the covers, pale and smooth. Taws murmured words too
indistinct for definition and gestured with his free hand, then released his
grip on Hattim and pointed to the sleeping girl.

           
The exposed arm pushed the covers down
and Ashrivelle sat up. Hattim gasped aloud, but his voice appeared as
insubstantial as his frame, soundless, for the princess gave no indication that
she heard him. Nor did she see him, for her eyes remained tight closed as she
slowly swung her legs from the bed to stand upright before the unseen watchers.
A gown of smooth, sheer silken material draped her nubile frame, a shining
silver-gray in color, sleek against the contours of her body. Hattim felt
excitement rise as her hands reached to the ribbons that fastened the robe
about her shoulders and drew the ties loose, the garment slithering to her
feet. She stood before him and he drank in the sight, feeling lust stir as his
eyes explored the planes of her body.

           
“I will give her to you when the
time is ripe,” Taws promised, “and she will be everything you dream of, and
more.”

           
He shifted his fingers again and
Ashrivelle bent to retrieve the discarded gown, veiling herself as Hattim
watched, licking his lips, wanting her now. With eyes still closed, she
fastened the gown and slid back beneath the covers, drawing them to her chin as
the mage took Hattim’s hand and they once more drifted away.

           
“Look,” Taws urged as they hovered
over Andurel, “I show you your future.”

           
Hattim followed the Messenger’s pointing
finger and saw the White Palace transformed. The green and gold of Ust-Galich
shimmered on the walls and towers, where the sunburst emblem of his kingdom
fluttered proudly. On the great gates that faced the avenue leading down into
the city he saw the sign, and as he watched, the avenue became lined with
warriors dressed in shining golden mail, green surcoats emblazoned with the
sunburst. The gates opened and a chariot drawn by two pure white horses came
stately through, the charioteer wearing the livery of Ust-Galich. Hattim saw
himself standing in the chariot, Ashrivelle beside him, a hand upon his arm and
adoration in her eyes. Then his attention was caught by a procession of
warriors that came slowly up the avenue, driving a group of men before them
with flails. Bedyr Caitin was one, he saw, and Jarl another; Kedryn stumbled
between them, and behind him, the heir of Kesh. All were in chains, and
bloodied as though taken in recent battle. They came to the chariot and halted,
falling to their knees with rank fear in their eyes and manacled hands upraised
in plea for mercy. He saw himself spring down, resplendent in regal robe of
green and gold, the medallion of the Kingdoms upon his breast, and stride
toward them. He saw his lips move and Bedyr nod, abasing himself, lips pressed
to the boot his conqueror extended. All followed suit and from the watching
soldiery and the admiring citizens there rose a great cry. He heard that and
recognized his name: “Hattim Sethiyan! Hattim Sethiyan! Lord of Andurel! Lord
of the Kingdoms!”

           
Then the vision faded and he was
again floating in the sky as Taws drew him back to the north over towns where
the sunburst of Ust-Galich flew, flickering in and out of his sight,
phantasmagoric over Tamur and Kesh, promise of power and prestige beyond his
wildest dreams.

           
Abruptly, the afterimage of the
chimera still burning in his mind, he was back in the chamber in Nyrwan,
sprawled on the bed with Taws standing before him. He shivered, staring at the
mage.

           
“You can give me that?”

           
Taws nodded without speaking.

           
“But ...” Twin doubts clouded
Hattim’s ambition. “The Sisterhood? What of them? And Kedryn—if he
is
the
Chosen
.”

           
“Do you doubt me?” snapped the mage,
frost in his tone so that Hattim shrank back, shaking his head. “The Sisterhood
is vulnerable—as must be all who adhere to Kyrie—for they place their trust in
weakness, in love and brotherhood. How did you vote when Kedryn spoke for peace
with the Beltrevan?”

           
“I spoke for war,” Hattim answered.
“I spoke for a slaughter of the tribes.”

           
“But Kedryn is governed by the
teachings of the Lady,” Taws sneered, “and he spoke for a sheathing of the
swords; for love where blood should have flowed. He is a true follower—and they
are all like that. I offer you the Kingdoms, man. Do you want them?”

           
Hattim licked his lips, his gaze
fastened on the mantis-features, no longer held by the hypnotic power of Taws’s
rubescent stare, but in fascination. He ducked his head.

           
“Aye, I do.”

           
“But there is still a doubt,” Taws
grated, the words bone on bone. “You fear the power of Estrevan, but I tell you
the Sacred City is far away and 1 can give you the throne before the blue-robed
bitches know it. And when they do, it will be too late. You will sit in the
White Palace and you will hold all those in Andurel hostage—Estrevan will not
dare move against you.

           
“Tamur and Kesh will murmur, but
neither Bedyr Caitin nor Jarl Sestrans will seek civil war. Not while you
occupy the city and Ashrivelle sleeps beside you. Not while they know the
Sisters of Andurel will die should they move against you.

           
“And Kedryn Caitin? I have a doom
planned for him that will satisfy all your hurt pride. He is blind, is he not?
And he travels to Estrevan in hope of regaining his sight. He will not! Not in
Estrevan, nor any place he will think to look. And while he is questing we
shall plant the seeds of his downfall. He will come to meet his doom as a lamb
to the slaughter!