Emissary (11 page)

‘Correct. And he’s looking for us. He’ll begin by focusing on Iridor,’ Pez said. ‘My magic is more obvious.’

‘But why am I shielded?’

He shook his head. ‘You are, it’s how it is. I will reveal you,’ he said sadly. ‘I am the cause of our traditional demise. It is always me who is discovered first.’

‘Are you frightened?’ she asked, trepidation creeping into her expression.

He lifted his chin, folded his arms. ‘Not at all.’

To his delight, Ana smiled and it was filled with warmth. ‘Why?’

‘Because you assure me that this time it’s different…and I intend to find out why and because of whom.’

After leaving Ana, Pez had flown to Star Island. With the newfound freedom of his wings and the fact that he was clearly not required by the Zar, there was no need to remain at the palace this night. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway with his mind racing along so fast, and he found a ready companion in Lazar.

‘Couldn’t sleep?’ Pez asked softly, approaching the hut and not surprised to see a familiar figure leaning up against the outside wall.

Lazar shook his head. ‘And it’s such a beautiful night anyway.’

‘I forgot to mention last time that the beard is interesting,’ Pez commented.

‘It occurred to me I may need a new disguise,’ Lazar said, scratching at it. ‘Horrible things. I’ve been growing this for months and hate it.’

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Stronger. Much stronger in fact.’

‘You look it—even in the moonlight.’ Pez grinned at his friend’s sneer. ‘Truly. You appear almost your grumpy self again.’

‘I feel like myself again,’ Lazar admitted. ‘The improvement is suddenly vigorous.’

‘Weren’t you warned it would be like this?’

Lazar nodded, pushed his large hand through his hair. ‘Zafira was told as much. My strength would return rapidly once my body had learned how to manage alongside the poison. Presumably it has done that.’

‘So what now?’

Lazar’s voice hardened. ‘Well, first you’re going to tell me about Jumo. I demand to know his story and then I’ll make a decision on what next.’

Pez felt a chill crawl up his spine. Lazar would not be in a good mood when he heard about Jumo. There was no point in avoiding it any longer, though.

‘Where is Jumo, Pez?’

‘By now I imagine he’s roaming Galinsea,’ he said, not giving himself any further time to think.

He expected a roar of anger, but it didn’t come. Instead he had to stand beneath the simmering glare of Lazar, trying not to squirm amidst the thick, uncomfortable silence that now wrapped itself about him.

Finally Lazar spoke, all his good humour evaporated once again. ‘Galinsea.’ It wasn’t a question. He knew the dwarf had spoken the truth. ‘Who sent him?’

‘He was determined to find your family, tell them of your demise.’

‘I repeat, who sent him there? Only two of us know my background.’

‘Then why are you asking?’ Pez said, disgusted by his own sense of inadequacy beneath the burning stare of the former Spur, whose shaking anger was now visible.

‘You told Jumo who I was?’ There was threat in the tone.

Pez had never been scared by Lazar but for the first time he understood what it might be like to be this man’s adversary. ‘Yes, that was our agreement, remember? I tell Jumo should anything fatal occur. And because of Ellyana’s bullheaded ways and your determination to follow them, you kept me in the dark about your survival for just long enough for me to make this error. It is your fault that Jumo knows.’

‘Anyone else?’

‘No.’

Lazar pushed away from the wall of the hut and strode towards the cliff edge. Pez had no choice but to follow like a shamed dog.

‘Where’s Zafira?’ he asked, desperate for any conversation that might rescue the bad mood.

‘At her temple,’ Lazar growled. ‘I’m well enough to care for myself now.’

‘Lazar, I—’

‘How long have I protected that secret, Pez?’ he said, staring angrily at the twinkling lights of the city across the bay.

‘I couldn’t have Jumo rushing off blindly with no idea of who to look for regarding your kin and him in such a bereft state. I hope—’

‘Sixteen years,’ Lazar said with feeling, swinging back to glower at Pez. ‘Painful, all of them.’

‘Were you not ever happy amongst us in Percheron?’

Lazar waved away Pez’s question as if it had no relevance. ‘Do you have any idea what it takes to renounce one’s heritage? Lineage? Realm? Crown?’

‘No, Lazar, but that was your decision.’

‘That’s right. It was also my decision to keep it a secret.’

‘You shared it with me.’

Lazar intensified his glare, exasperation flooding through the fury he was barely controlling. ‘I have learned a lesson this night. A secret is no longer a secret once shared.’

‘How true!’ Pez snapped, his own anger, fuelled by the frustrations of the day, also spilling over. ‘Why tell anyone anything if you don’t anticipate that you are empowering someone with that knowledge, Lazar? Jumo deserved to know the truth and we had an agreement. I followed it to the letter. You were dead as far as we knew. He was heartbroken—can you imagine how it felt to hear that the man he called his master and friend had died and his body had already been disposed of, and him not much more than a bystander to the suffering?’

‘I have some idea,’ Lazar replied, trying to sound reasonable but it came out like a growl. ‘I’m allowed this anger. I was not privy to this decision to appear dead. It was made for me.’

‘And I made another one for you. I told your closest and most loyal friend the truth. No-one deserved it more than Jumo, not even Ana.’

Lazar moved his head back at the mention of her name as though slapped. ‘And you will tell her nothing!’ he commanded.

‘There is always danger in knowledge, Lazar, but be careful your precautions don’t drift into cowardice. There’s no threat in Jumo ever knowing the truth, no threat in Ana knowing either, and still you keep that knowledge of who you are a secret from your true friends.’

Pez’s words were said so kindly it seemed to take the rage away. Lazar’s head dropped, his chin almost touching his broad chest. ‘When did Jumo leave?’

‘The morning after the night of your purported death.’

‘I am no coward, Pez. I have kept that secret to protect those I care about. You were already well protected by your madness and Zar Joreb making you above almost all palace law. But Jumo is in danger.’

‘From your family?’

‘Possibly, I can’t be sure, but now I know where I must go.’

‘You’re going back to Galinsea?’ Pez stated his own shock so baldly that Lazar appeared to flinch. ‘You’re leaving her?’

When the former Spur turned his gaze on Pez this time there was only grief in his eyes. ‘I am no good to her any more. She is a Zar’s woman.’

Pez could not bear the disguised self-pity in that statement, nor could he tolerate for a moment longer Lazar’s denial of Ana. It was time to tell the whole story. ‘She is so much more. Ana masquerades as an odalisque. She was never a goatherd’s daughter in anything more than accidental title. Ana is not who you imagine her to be.’

Genuine pain claimed Lazar’s expression. Pez was privately stunned. He had known this man since his arrival in Percheron and watched his subsequent rise from prisoner to the city’s top security position. This was a man who was so self-contained at the best of times that no-one, including Pez, could successfully second-guess what thoughts were going on behind those intelligent eyes. And Lazar was a master of control, his face rarely revealing his mood. Everyone knew Lazar to be incredibly talented at his job and well liked for his professionalism, fairness to others and loyalty to his Zar. However, they also knew him to be stubborn, difficult, arrogant and serious. To make the Spur of Percheron even break into a smile was something to be treasured and only very few, including Pez, could achieve that. Curiously,
the very mention of Ana could shatter the invisible yet seemingly implacable fortress that Lazar had built around himself. Her very name seemed to have a magical quality, as if it were some sort of touchstone that opened the gates of the fortress, allowing the tightly imprisoned emotions to rush out.

Pez understood now. It wasn’t the drezden that would be Lazar’s weakness in life. It would be Ana. Since he had first laid his love-starved eyes on this young woman, she had become both his salvation and his potential destruction. Only time would tell which.

Lazar bridled at Pez’s challenge. ‘What do you mean, she is so much more? I know Ana as well as anyone. Better, in fact. I found her. I know who she is.’

‘You know nothing, Lazar,’ Pez said and watched a shiver pass through his friend as if he were cold. But Pez knew he wasn’t trembling from a chill; Lazar was finding the courage to ask his next question and Pez was ready for it.

‘Who is she?’ the former Spur demanded.

‘I believe she is Lyana, the Mother Goddess, incarnated in the flesh.’

A silence stretched between both men. Pez knew Lazar would neither ridicule nor try to counter such a claim, probably because he felt the truth of those words strike like a knife in his heart.

It was a long time before either spoke. Lazar broke the silence. ‘How can you be sure?’ he said finally. It came out as a choked whisper.

‘Who can ever be sure about life, Lazar? But I feel it. I can’t deny it any longer. I’m Iridor and she’s Lyana. That’s why we’re together in the palace. You know the old story, I presume?’

Lazar nodded, still choked. ‘But that’s all it’s been to me. A story. The foundation of my faith, the tale passed down through centuries that was too seductive to ignore. Although the story tells us that Lyana was vanquished by Zarab, a few of us still believe she will rise again and prevail. I certainly felt a kinship when I saw her likeness in Zafira’s temple. Galinsea now worships the land and the sea, the sky and its firmament…’ Lazar shrugged, ‘I feel I belong in Percheron where some still cling to the faith of the Goddess.’

‘But Nature is what Lyana stands for, of course, so Galinsea is still true to her in its way. Lyana is about the land and the forces that impact on it—sea, sun, desert, storm. She does not put herself above the natural forces of our existence as Zarab does. He claims godliness over everything, power over the land and its forces, its—’

‘But she is not real…not in the flesh anyway. She is part of a story.’ Lazar’s final words sounded like a plea.

Pez’s passion evaporated as he turned grave. ‘The story that founded your original faith is true. But you would also know the cyclical nature of
that story—every few centuries, when Lyana feels strong enough she rises again to fight the demon who serves Zarab…to claim back her rightful place.’

‘Yes, I know the tale. What has that to do with Ana?’

‘She is part of the new cycle. I believe Ana is the mortal reincarnation of Lyana for the coming battle.’

‘And what if you’re wrong?’ Lazar demanded. ‘What if Ana really is just a young woman trying to survive in the Zar’s harem?’

‘No newborn, left alone in the desert, survives the much-feared Samazen windstorm, Lazar,’ Pez reminded softly. ‘No young woman can communicate the force of power that I am sensing unless she is truly enchanted by something of a greater imagination than any of us. Even you would have to be surprised at her knowledge of the Stones of Percheron—she knows every statue and its history…tell me how a goatherd’s daughter can learn this? What about her ability with language? Perhaps you don’t know how talented she is with tongues—why should you, you hardly know her? But it’s extraordinary. And her composure, in one so young? Lazar, accept it, Ana is an ancient soul.’

‘I won’t,’ he growled at the dwarf. ‘You’ve given me nothing but conjecture.’ Lazar ran both hands through his golden hair in a rare show of anxiety. ‘I want facts, Pez. Give me something real that is unequivocal.’

‘That’s easy, Lazar,’ Pez said, mindful of the pain he was inflicting. He wondered fleetingly whether this conversation might set Lazar back in his recovery. Or, he reasoned in the few seconds of silence he gave himself before answering his friend, this might be the catalyst for Lazar. It could galvanise him into action. Pez wasn’t sure what that action might be but he’d had a quiet feeling of dread ever since Ana mentioned that this time the battle would be different. It had been gnawing at him that the difference might just be the prince of Galinsea. He couldn’t be sure yet but his instincts had rarely let him down, and if it was true, then he needed Lazar strong. ‘It is easy,’ he repeated. ‘Here’s an undeniable fact. I can suddenly change at will into a white owl. Lyana’s messenger of old has always been a white owl. The owl is called Iridor. He rises before she does. He is the trigger that the demon senses to begin his grim work for his god. You speak with Iridor regularly; you have witnessed his transformation. You know who I am. You have heard of the black bird of omen?’

‘The Raven. I knew him as the bird of sorrows.’

‘That’s right, he is known as this too. He gathers around her as well.’

‘And he’s shown himself, I suppose you’re going to tell me.’

‘Kett is the black bird. He said as much to me.’ Lazar looked as though he had been slapped. ‘He named himself this way?’

‘To my face he called himself the Raven. Do you still think this is all a coincidence? Or will you believe, as I suspect Ellyana and Zafira do, that Ana is the Goddess? Why else did she run to the statue of Lyana at the temple when she escaped the harem? Admit the facts, as I have had to. Ana is Lyana incarnate…even her name suggests as much.’

It was irrefutable. Lazar lifted his chin, his eyes raised to the heavens, and he let loose a groan of such torment it tore at Pez’s heart. When the loosing of that emotion was done with, Lazar slumped to the ground, burying his golden-haired head in his knees that he encircled in long arms, and refused to look at Pez, which in itself was tacit acknowledgement of what the dwarf had claimed.

From between his knees Lazar croaked one word. ‘Maliz?’

Pez sighed privately, pleased to move on and glad that Lazar knew his history. ‘He, too, has…become. I know he is searching for me.’

Lazar uncrossed his arms and raised his head to turn and face his friend. His expression was naked now. The fortress was ruined. Lazar was vulnerable and there was a mixture of fear and alarm spreading across his face. It was frightening to witness. ‘You know that for sure?’

The dwarf shrugged mirthlessly. ‘I feel it too. He is amongst us at the palace.’

Now the soldier looked horrified. ‘That close! Ana’s that close to danger?’

‘He has no idea of her existence yet,’ Pez assured but could see his words had little impact. ‘What I mean is, he may have seen Ana but no connection has been made. We still have some time.’