The Deed of Paksenarrion (146 page)

“After so many quiet years, I simply can’t understand it.” Valichi gestured with his wine glass. “I must have missed something, staying up here with recruits—somehow I let them build up—but I swear to you, my lord, we had no trouble. No trouble at all.”

“I believe you.” The Duke’s eyes were hooded. “I can only imagine that they are moved by some power—” He paused as Lady Arvys’s hand rested lightly on his arm for a moment. She murmured something low into his ear. His face relaxed into a smile, and he shook his head. “Well,” he said in a milder tone, “we need not mar our meal with such talk. Tir knows we’ve covered the same ground before. Has anyone a lighter tale, to sweeten the evening?” Paks saw the others’ eyes shift sideways from face to face. She herself had never imagined the Duke being deflected from a serious concern by anyone, let alone someone like Lady Arvys. Meanwhile Simmitt had begun talking of rumors from Lyonya: the king’s illness, and turmoil among the heirs. The lady listened eagerly.

“Did you hear anything about Lord Penninalt?” she asked, when Simmitt paused.

“No, lady, not then. Did you know him?”

“Yes, indeed. A fine man. My late husband held his lands from Lord Penninalt, and we went every year to the Firsting Feast.” She turned to the Duke. “He is not so tall as you, my lord, or as famous in battle, but a brave man nonetheless.”

“You need not flatter me,” said the Duke, but he seemed not displeased.

Paks shivered. She looked up to find Venneristimon, diagonally across the table, staring at her.

“Are you quite well, Paks?” he asked. His tone was gentle and concerned, but it rasped on her like a file on bare flesh.

“Yes,” she said shortly. Something moved behind his eyes, and he passed a flagon of a different wine down the table.

“Here—try this. Perhaps it will help.” Now the others were looking at her, curious. Paks poured the wine—white this time—into her glass. She didn’t want it, but did not want to make a fuss, either.

“I’m fine,” she said. She passed the flagon back, and speared another sliver of roast mutton. She drenched it in gravy, and stuffed it quickly in her mouth. The others turned back to their own plates. When she glanced up again, Venner was still watching her sideways. His mouth stiffened when she met his eyes. She felt her heart begin to pound; her skin tingled. The lady and Simmitt talked on, idle gossip of court society and politics. Paks looked back at her plate. She had nearly cleaned it, and the dishes on the table were almost empty. She reached for the last redroots on the platter.

“Still hungry, Paks?” The lady’s voice, though warm and friendly, had the same effect on Paks as Venner’s. “I suppose you work so much harder—”

Paks felt her face go hot. She had not realized the others were through. Her stomach clenched, but Val was answering.

“All soldiers learn to eat when they can, lady.” She glanced over to find him cutting himself another slice of mutton. “Paks is not one to talk when she has nothing to say.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” said the lady, smiling down the table. “Paks, do say you forgive me--”

Paks’s mouth was dry as dust. She took a deliberate sip of the white wine, and said, “It’s not for me to forgive, lady; you meant no offense.” The wine seemed to go straight to her head; her vision blurred. As if she looked through smoke, she peered up the table and met Lady Arvys’s eyes. They changed from green to flat black as she looked. Paks felt the jolt in her head; she looked toward Venner as if someone pulled her head on a string. He was watching her, lips folded under at the corners, like someone satisfied but wary. Her sense of wrong seemed to grab her whole body and shake it. Half-stupefied by the wine (how could one swallow be so strong?) she looked from one face to the other. Of course.
Venner
had been her escort. Even so, what was happening?

She might have sat there longer, but Venner spoke. “Ah . . . do you find the wine too strong for you, Paks? Are you still feeling ill?”

A flicker of anger touched her, and with it a warning. The anger, too, was wrong. It felt alien, as if it came from someone else. She reached deep inside for her own sense of self, and found not only that but a call for guidance. Her tongue felt clumsy, but she formed the words: “In the High Lord’s name—”

Venner’s face contracted; black malice leaped from his eyes. At once the hall was plunged into darkness. Stinking lamp smoke flavored a cold wind that scoured the room. Without thought Paks asked light, and found herself lined with glowing brilliance. She leaped up, looking for Venner. She could hear the scrape of chairs on the floor, the exclamations of the others—and a curse from Venner’s sister. The Duke gasped; she knew without looking that he’d been wounded somehow. At Venner’s end of the table, nothing could be seen but a whirl of darkness.

“You fool,” said his voice out of that darkness. “You merely make yourself a target.” Something struck at her, a force like a thrown javelin. She staggered a little, but the light repelled it. She looked at the captains: they sat sprawled in their chairs, eyes glittering in the spell-light, but unmoving. “They won’t help you,” Venner went on. “They can’t. And you are unarmed, but I—” She saw the darkness move to the wall, saw it engulf the terrible notched blade she’d seen there. “While
she
takes care of the Duke, I will kill you with this—as I killed before—and again no one will know. When I let these captains free, it will seem that you went wild—as Stephi did before you—and killed the Duke, while I tried to save his life.”

Paks was already moving, clearing herself of the chair. She had picked up a bronze platter—the largest thing on the table—and looked now to the walls for a weapon of her own. She was nearly too late. Venner had taken more than the notched sword: out of the darkness the battleaxe whirled at her. She flung out the platter, and it folded around the axe, slowing it and spoiling the blow. She had her dagger in hand now—far too short against an unseen opponent. The ragged edge of Venner’s sword caught the dagger and nearly took it out of her hand. She jumped back.

“You can’t escape,” his voice said, out of the blackness. “You—”

Paks saw a glow on one wall and leaped for it. The notched blade clattered against the wall just behind her. But she had a sword in her hand—the sword with the green stone. Its blade glowed blue as she took it. Before she could turn, Venner struck again. She felt the black sword open a gash along her side; she tucked and rolled away, and came up ready to fight.

Now she could sense, within the darkness, a core—more like the skeleton of a man than a man entire. One thin arm held the dark blade; the other held a dagger almost half as long. Paks thrust at the dark blade. Her own sword rang along it. Venner countered, stabbing with the dagger. Paks swept it aside, and attacked vigorously, beating him back and back.

“You can’t see me!” screamed Venner. “You can’t—”

But she could. Dark within dark, his shape grew clearer as they fought. Suddenly the dark was gone, as if Venner had dropped a black cloak. Paks stared, uncertain. He had disappeared; she could see the wall and floor where he should be. A blade came out of nowhere to strike her arm; she felt rather than saw the flicker of movement and managed to counter it. Now she sensed him as a troubling thickness in the air, a nearly transparent glimmer, barely visible in her own brilliant spell-light. She kept after him. The sword she held seemed to move almost of its own will, weightless and perfectly balanced in her hand. Venner retreated again, toward the head of the table. Paks followed. She had not expected the Duke’s steward to be much of a swordsman—she hadn’t thought of it at all—but he was skillful.

Venner swept the table suddenly with his left arm, sent food and dishes flying between them. Paks slipped on a greasy hunk of mutton. Venner stabbed wildly with the sword. She rolled aside and let the thrust pass. Her sword caught him in the ribs; she heard a rasping gurgle, and he was visible, hand held against his side. Paks lunged at him. He dropped the sword, and dodged. While she was still off balance, he grappled with her, trying to rake her with the dagger. She could see the brown stain along it, surely poison.

“You stinking kellich!” he snarled. “You Girdish slut! You’ll die the same as she did, and Achrya will revel in this hall—”

Paks could not use her sword in close; she dropped it and dug her strong fingers into his wrist. Red froth bubbled from his mouth as they wrestled on the floor. He was surprisingly strong.

“Arvys!” he cried suddenly. “Arvys! Help me!” Paks heard noise around the room—chairs and boots scraping on the stone, voices—but she was too busy to listen. Venner had both hands on the dagger hilt, and she had to use both hands to hold it off. “Achrya,” he said viciously, glaring at Paks. “You found before you could not stand against her. She will bind you in burning webs forever, you Gird’s dog—”

“By the High Lord,” said Paks suddenly, “neither you nor Achrya will prosper here, Venner. His is the power, and Gird gave the blessing—”

“You will
die,
” repeated Venner. “All in this hall—and she will reward me, as she did before—” But he was weakening, and Paks managed to force him back. She could feel the sinews in his wrist slackening. She closed her own fingers tighter, and all at once his hand sagged open, releasing the dagger. It clattered on the floor. Paks kicked it far aside, and shifted one hand from Venner’s left wrist to her own dagger, dropped nearby.

“Now,” she said, “we will hear more of this—”

“I spit at you, Gird’s dog. I laugh—” But he was choking, and he sagged heavily under her hands.

“Paks! Hold!” Arcolin’s voice. She held her dagger to Venner’s throat, and waited. “What’s—”

“The Duke!” Master Simmitt, this time. “By the gods—”

“He’s dead—or dying—” Arvys’s voice was savage. “And Achrya will have his soul—and
yours—”
she broke off in a scream.

“Not yet,” said Cracolnya. “Don’t you know you can’t knife a man in mail?” Paks’s attention was diverted for an instant. Venner surged up against her hold; without thinking she slammed her hand down. Her dagger ripped his throat, and he died.

She scrambled up to see what else had happened. Shadows fled before her spell-light. Simmitt leaned over the Duke, who was slumped in his seat. On the other side, Cracolnya held Arvys, her arms twisted behind her.

“Light,” snapped the surgeon. “Come here, Paks, if that’s you making a light.” She came around the table. She saw Dorrin working with flint and steel to relight the lamps. The Duke’s face was gray; a slow pulse beat in his neck. He seemed to gasp for breath. Visanior too had reached the Duke’s seat; the two surgeons maneuvered him from the chair to the tabletop. Simmitt slit his tunic and spread it. There on the left side was a narrow wound—Paks glanced at Arvys and saw the sheath of a small dagger dangling from her wrist.

“That’s close—” commented Visanior.

“Poison, or in the heart?” Simmitt bent close to listen to the Duke’s heart.

“Poison, and close to it.” Visanior turned away. “I’ve a few drops of potion in my quarters—”

“Too late,” hissed Arvys. “You won’t save him—or yourselves. Nothing you’ve got will touch that—and your precious Duke, as you call him, will never take his rightful seat—” Cracolnya tightened his hold, and she gasped.

Paks reached out to touch the Duke’s shoulder.

“Get back, Paks—you’re no surgeon, and I don’t have time—”

“Let her.” Dorrin brought a lamp near, its light golden next to the white spell-light. “She alone saw Venner’s nature; she alone could free herself to fight him. Perhaps—” She looked at Paks, her own hand going to the tiny Falkian symbol at her throat. “Perhaps you learned more than we knew, is that so?”

Paks felt a pressure in her head, and could not answer. She only knew she had to touch the Duke—had to call what powers she could name. As she laid her hand on his shoulder, the spell-light dimmed except along that arm. She closed her eyes against it: she had no time to study what was happening.

Touching the Duke was like laying her hand on the skin of running water: she felt a faint resistance, a surface tension, and a strong sense of moving power underneath. Without realizing it, she brought her other hand to his other shoulder. She felt within herself the same moving power that she sensed in the Duke, although in her it ran swifter, lighter. She tried to bring the two powers together.

At first it seemed that the surface between them thickened, resisting. The Duke’s rhythm slowed and cooled, as if some moving liquid stiffened into stone. But her plea to the High Lord and Gird brought a vision of movement, of sinking through the surface as a hand sinks in water. She let herself drift deeper. In that thicker substance, that cooling stream, she loosed her own fiery essence, the flames that had danced deep within since the night of the Kuakgan’s magic fire.

Slowly the Duke responded. Whatever the flow might be, it flowed more swiftly—it moved lightly on its way, with returning joy. Paks followed the flow, to find a source of stagnation—some evil essence. She felt herself touch it, and it dissolved, running away, overtaken by her flame, and then gone. With that, the Duke’s body swung back to its own balance. She felt the restored health, and the rejection, at the same instant, and pulled herself back into her own body just ahead of it.

His eyes were open. Blank for a moment, then fully aware: startled and intent all at once. Paks stepped back, shaken by her gift. Simmitt stared at her. They all did. The room’s light was golden from lamps; her spell-light had disappeared.

“What—?” The Duke had his head up now, raking the room with his glance. His hand lay over his ribs, where the dagger had gone in.

“My lord, it was Venner—”

“This so-called lady—”

“Paks was the only one who could—”

“Quiet.” Arcolin’s voice cut through them, and brought order. “Cracolnya, Valichi—guard her: nothing else. My lord Duke, it seems your steward was a traitor of some sort. Paks has killed him. The rest of us were somehow spellbound, unable to move, though we heard enough. Kessim is dead. And that—” he paused and glared at Arvys.

“She stabbed me,” said the Duke calmly. “I remember that. Some kind of argument, and then darkness, and then I felt a blade in my side.” He sat up on the edge of the table, and looked down at the blood that streaked his skin and clothes. “Heh. No mark now. Who had the healing potion so handy?” He looked at Visanior and Simmitt.