Shadowdance (59 page)

The music caught him up with an unexpected force. He couldn't resist. The pipe sang, the wind harp screamed, and his body began to dance. He spun and spun until the night became a flow of motion and his senses swam. He tried to find a focus, something to help him balance. As he turned, he glanced toward the wall. There were three figures there, now, silhouetted by the watchfires: Minarik and Rascal and Dyan playing her pipe.

The music didn't stop, but as suddenly as it had seized him, it let him go. The wind harp swelled louder, and the pipe's notes blew faster as the wind carried the sound to the Witch's troops.

Eerily, they began to dance as Innowen had danced, repeating his steps, turning, turning. The weapons fell from their hands; torches tumbled to the ground. Mounted warriors dismounted and began to dance. Thousands of men suddenly heard the music of the pipe and the wind harp and fell under a powerful spell.

Innowen watched in horror. No surge of triumph rushed through him. This was nothing he had done. Only the choreography had been drawn from him. It was the power of Khoom, shaped by Dyan. The soldiers moved like puppets, dreamlike, entranced.

The Witch screamed. Her garments whipped about her like the wings of an angry bird. The wind hurled ash into her face. "What have you done?" she cried. "What have you done?"

Thousands of dancers spread out over the field, faces enrapt, turning, swaying, extending their bodies with unnatural grace and power, unable to stop.

"
Dance away the world
," Innowen said suddenly, flashing a resentful glare. "You claimed you saw it in my fixture.
Dance away the world,
you said. Armies would fall before me." He clenched his fists and shook them at this stranger who was his mother. "Don't you see? They're your armies, and it's your world, Minowee. Your world and your rule, your dreams of Akkadi!"

The Witch's hands shot into the air, and she threw back her head. "Khoom!" she screamed. "Khoom, give me power!"

"Khoom has abandoned you!" Innowen shouted. He pointed toward the top of the wall, toward the piper. "There is his new priestess. There! Kyrin's daughter! Your niece!"

The Witch screamed again, a note so shrill it chilled the blood in Innowen's veins. Her horse reared, screaming its own animal cry. Its great hooves crashed down at Innowen, and he jumped back desperately. From somewhere within her garments, the Witch drew a sword. Like a vengeful, taloned bird, she swooped down at him.

Innowen hurled himself aside, rolled in the dust and leaped to his feet. But the Witch bent lower and lower, as if the weight of her sword were dragging her down. He realized she was falling. Her garments fluttered wildly about her, and the blade tumbled from her grip. A great cloud of ash rose as she hit the ground.

Innowen raced to her side. The Witch lay unmoving on her back. An arrow sprouted from her left breast where a dark rose was taking form on her white gown. Kneeling, he bent over her. He touched her cheek, so like his own, and warring emotions began to tear and pull at his insides. He screamed silently, lowering his face to hers, peering into her eyes as her blank gaze filled with the light of the moon.

The gates of Whisperstone sprang open. Innowen gathered his mother in his arms and cradled her in his lap as Minarik's soldiers rushed at the Witch's hapless troops. They gave no cheer, no shouts of battle or triumph that might have drowned Dyan's music. While the wind harp faded, her pipe sang loud through the night.

A grisly harvest began.

Chapter 25

A dark smoke rose from the piles of burning bodies. All day it hung thick over Whisperstone. The wall meant nothing to it. It drifted through the grounds, through doors and windows, permeating the great keep with its potent smell. Still, out on the field, Minarik's men worked grimly, feeding the flames with more and more corpses while disappointed carrion birds wheeled and gyred in the sweltering sky overhead.

Sitting in Minarik's chair, Innowen watched it all from the top of the wall, a self-imposed penance, and every body thrown into the flames was like a lash stroke across his back. He'd watched his mother tossed into the fire without ceremony. He'd watched as Kyrin's body was carried from the stables and lofted onto the same pile by a pair of burly soldiers wearing cloths tied over their faces.

Despite the pain of his wound, Minarik came to him twice, and squeezed his shoulder, and stared with him out over the carnage. Neither of them spoke, though, and eventually his father left him alone. None of the other soldiers bothered him. He was
abathakati
again, someone to fear. Razkili brought him water to drink and food, which Innowen refused.

"I will not dance tonight," he said quietly. Razkili said nothing, but ran a hand slowly through Innowen's hair and down the back of his neck.

The sun sank behind Whisperstone. As flames burned high in the darkness, workers continued to feed the dozens of piles. A terrible red-orange beauty colored the night, and shadows danced liked moths around the fires. Innowen rose from his father's chair, and Razkili placed a thin cloak around his shoulders.

"I will not dance tonight," he whispered as Razkili led him away.

Darkness brought no rest to Whisperstone. Those soldiers and villagers who were not working the fires on the field were busy on the main grounds, working, preparing weapons and supplies by the light of campfires. Already, plans were being made to retake Parendur from the token force the Witch had left in control there. It was an action the soldiers were eager for, and spirits were high as they went about their tasks. In Parendur, the soldiers would again offer the crown to Minarik, and there, Minarik would reluctantly accept and become Ispor's king.

Inside Whisperstone, the slaves and servants, with the help of many of the village women, rushed maddeningly about setting out the feast they had spent much of the day preparing. An air of festivity filled the halls. As with the soldiers, most of them considered the battle against the Witch a great victory, and they went about their work jubilantly.

Innowen moved through them like a ghost until he reached the privacy of his rooms. There, he settled down on his bed and threw an arm over his eyes. Shortly, though, he got up and paced to the window and stared outward. Then he walked to the far side of the room and picked up the burning lamp and examined it. He poured a kylix of wine for himself, took a sip, set it down.

Razkili sat patiently, quietly, in a chair out of the way, watching.

"I won't dance tonight," Innowen said yet again. He picked up the kylix and drained half the wine within it.

"I know," Razkili answered, folding his hands across his stomach as he met Innowen's gaze. His eyes were wide and luminescent in the glow from the lamp, and there was a serenity in his face that sent a pang through Innowen's heart.

Innowen set the cup down, rushed to Razkili and knelt down before him. "I want you to go back to Osirit," he said heavily. He leaned his head down on Razkili's knee and closed his eyes as he spoke. Slowly, he trailed one hand up and down the side of Rascal's calf. "I don't want you to see me crippled."

Razkili began to work his fingers through Innowen's hair. "I've carried you this far," he said with the barest trace of amusement, pushing the double meaning. "What makes you think I'll leave now?"

"Because I want you to, Rascal," he replied flat-voiced, without feeling. "I've been able to walk at night." He paused, the words catching in his throat. He swallowed hard. "It'll be different when I can't walk at all."

Razkili's grip tightened in Innowen's hair, and he gently shook Innowen's head. "Shut up," he whispered, almost with a chuckle.

Innowen opened his eyes, and for. a long time he watched the little lamp flame flickering in the slight breeze that blew in through the window. The sounds of music drifted faintly on the air, soft percussion accompanying bells, as the celebration got under way in earnest. With a start, he realized he'd been listening, not for that, but for Dyan's pipe.

Tonight, though, Khoom's new priestess was silent.

Reluctantly, Innowen freed himself from Razkili's embrace. "Let's go down to the courtyard," he said, thinking of the gazebo. "I'll wait there for sunrise."

Maybe it was the dead foliage that kept others away. Innowen wasn't sure why so few others came to the courtyard. It was his favorite place, despite the withered flowers and the brown, dusty vines. To him, it was the heart of Whisperstone.

No one had lit the torches. The courtyard was utterly dark, except for the thin light that leaked from some of the upper windows. He climbed into the gazebo and sat down in the same seat he had taken years ago on that day when Minarik had adopted him. That made him smile now. Minarik had always been his father. He wondered suddenly what must have gone through Minarik's mind on that day, and he glanced down at the bird-shaped ring on his finger that his father had given him.

"That's better," Razkili said, settling into Minarik's seat opposite Innowen. "It's the first time you've smiled today."

Self-consciously, Innowen smiled again and tried uselessly to hide it. "You must admit, there's been little to smile about." He leaned his head against the back of the chair and sighed.

"Your country is free," Razkili said reasonably.

Innowen sighed once more. Talking was a good way to pass the time. It would keep his mind off dancing, off the gentle, musical rush of the breeze in his ears, off the dooming approach of the dawn. It seemed to him suddenly that he and Rascal had not talked in a long time.

"Free," he said finally. "What does that mean? One ruler falls, another ruler ascends. Koryan, Kyrin, Minowee, and now my father. Yes, Minarik's soldiers are happy, and these villagers are happy because they've lived so long under Minarik's protection. But do you really think the rest of the people care?" He remembered the potter he had spoken with outside the gate of Parendur and felt a stab of guilt because he couldn't recall the old man's name. "As long as their families are fed and they're left alone to scratch a living for themselves, do you think any of this matters to them?"

Razkili leaned forward. "Do you really think that's all they care about? What about fear, Innowen? They may have all you say they want, a little food, and a few coins, and a house to live in. But what if they can lose it all at any moment on a ruler's whim? What if their safety, on any given day, depends on what side of the bed their ruler rises from? What if they can be dragged from their farms and pressed into service? What if they are taxed into starvation?" He leaned back again and crossed one knee over the other as he clasped his hands. "I think you'll find they care more than you give them credit for."

There was a difference between rulers and tyrants, Innowen admitted silently to himself. He had known Kyrin too well, and he had no illusions about which his mother would have been. He knew her power, had seen the relish with which she wielded it. Ispor would have loved her and despaired.

He rested his chin in his hand and looked away. Even in death, Minowee still had not relinquished her hold on him. She'd haunted him in life, and now her ghost would haunt him. At last, he turned back to Razkili and voiced the question he had feared to ask all day. "Did you shoot the arrow that killed her?" he said.

It was Rascal's turn to look away as he pursed his lips and considered. "No," he answered.

Innowen drew a breath and chewed his lip. "I didn't want it to be you," he said. After another pause, he spoke again. "Was it Minarik?"

Razkili turned back to him. "Do you really want to know who killed her?" he said with a piercing look. "Do you?"

Innowen looked away again, and his thoughts slipped back to that last meeting with his mother. She would have slain him. He saw in his mind the sword in her hand, raised to cut him down, and the look of fury on her face. Yet she hadn't known. She hadn't really known who he was. "No," he said at last. If it wasn't Rascal or Minarik, then he could be content not knowing. He just hadn't wanted the killer to be his lover—or Minowee's lover.

Strange, he found himself using her name more and more, now that she was dead. Before, she had always been
the Witch
or sometimes, much later and rarely, an impersonal
mother.

"Innocent?" Razkili leaned forward and tapped Innowen's knee to draw his attention.

Innowen winced. "Please," he said, frowning, "don't call me that. Not for a while."

The music of the celebration drifted into the courtyard, louder and more clearly, yet sweet. The bells' crystal notes perforated the air like tiny knives, and Innowen found himself tapping his foot to the drums' percussion. He stopped as soon as he caught himself and gripped the arms of his chair. It would be so easy to give in. The music called him to dance. It tugged at him. This time, though, he would be strong.

"I love you," he said suddenly to Razkili.

They fell quiet again after that. It was enough that they waited together, privately watching the stars roll above the courtyard, listening to the wind rustle through the gazebo's dry vines, each thinking his own private thoughts. Little by little, the bells and the drums and the sounds of celebration faded. One by one, as the celebrants went to bed, the lights in the windows winked out, all except one, which was the window of their own room. Finally, even that light flickered out as the lamp exhausted its oil. Still, they waited, speaking little; letting the long silences say more than mere words could convey.