Will Shetterly - Witch Blood (9 page)

She twitched as if answering to an epileptic puppeteer. The smell of roasting meat came to my nostrils, and my bruised throat constricted to gag my nausea. The woman’s skin blackened and cracked under the lightning’s blinding glow. An ugly corpse dropped to lie near me.

I scrambled to my feet. Talivane held Naiji with one arm while he peered at the Spirit and then at her apprentice. The man was also dead. “Interesting,” said Talivane. “I wonder if he willed his death, or if your sword stroke slew him?”

I could not speak yet, nor did I care to.

“You’re all right?” Naiji asked her brother, obviously, concerned for him, and at that moment, nothing else.

He nodded.

“I was afraid for you...”

“ He caressed her cheek. ”I’m sorry. Forgive me. I thought it... necessary.“

“Necessary?” I gasped, disbelieving.

He glanced at me, then said calmly, “Yes.”

“I’m glad...” My breath came slowly.

“Yes?”

“I’m glad I’m not bound to you.”

He laughed. “But you are! Obviously my sister’s safety is your first concern.” He smiled. “And obviously I can protect her better than you. And so, to guard her, you must guard me. Isn’t that so?”

I could only cough then, which was probably best.

Naiji stepped away from the Count. “Was this a test?” she asked.

“I didn’t plan it, if that’s what you want to know.”

“You could have ended it sooner.”

“Yes,” he admitted. “But I watched closely. You wouldn’t have been hurt. Not badly, anyway.”

She seemed to stifle anger, then said, “What of Rifkin?”

Talivane shrugged. “He proved himself. You certainly may keep him, if you wish.”

“I will!” she said.

He laughed. “Ah, Naiji. You think I acted irresponsibly in waiting?”

“Yes.”

“No. I would have acted irresponsibly had I accepted Rifkin without testing him. Our people are more important to me than any foreigner, no matter how exotic his appearance.”

She snapped, “I didn’t—”

“I’m sorry. A jest. I believe you brought Rifkin because you thought he could aid us. Perhaps he can. You’ll grant that we learned more about him than he was inclined to tell.” He studied me. “What is this ‘art’ you share with the Spirits?”

I rubbed my throat. “The elder of them had a far greater share than I.”

“Speak, Rifkin.”

“I do,” I said. “Will you ask me to fetch, next? Or roll over and play dead? That’d be easiest, now.”

Talivane grinned. “Perhaps we’ll paint your face like a jester’s, Rifkin. Come, let’s seek dinner. Someone else will clean this mess.” He held out a ringed hand for Naiji. She nodded and took it, and they went out the door.

I looked at the charred corpse of the Spirit and remembered what skill and dedication had resided there. Then I looked at the pained face of her companion. Whatever else they had been, they had loved each other.

I left the room to follow Naiji. As I walked through the dark and drafty halls, I chanted the death song under my breath for the two Spirits and the bear called Avo. It seemed as if the Black Shark had decided to swim with me this evening. I wondered if he still followed in my wake.

7

IN THE HALL
far ahead of me Talivane spoke to someone in a bronze helmet. The soldier saluted with a quick touch of his hand to his forehead and hurried off. The Gromandiels’ library would probably be found unsullied when the Count returned to it.

“Come, Rifkin,” Talivane said. “Walk with us.”

I took a position beside Naiji.

“I’m still curious about the ‘art’ you mentioned earlier,” he said.

Only my annoyance had kept me from answering him before. Truth should never be hoarded. “There’s a popular discipline in the cities along the Ladizhar Sea. It translates into your language as, perhaps, the Path, or the Route. Originally it was a means of training the mind and the body through exercise and meditation in order to transcend the world around us.”

“An old idea,” said Talivane. “I prefer to improve the world.”

“A second old idea,” said Naiji.

Talivane grimaced in annoyance, but only said to me, “What do assassins and mercenaries have to do with spiritual aspirations?”

“There was one long ago known as the Warrior-Saint. Some say she fell from the Path, some say she strode farthest upon it. Whatever the truth, she took what she had learned in a discipline of denial and used it to build a kingdom.”

“This was along the Ladizhar?” Naiji asked.

“Yes,” I said. “When the Witches’ Empire fell, or so our legends have it. Istviar sprang from the Warrior-Saint’s capital.”

“Her teachings are still known there?” Talivane said.

“There are many schools, old and new. Each insists it is the only true Path.”

Talivane’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve walked this Path?”

“I’ve tripped over it a few times in my wanderings.”

“Will you teach my people what you know?”

“If your sister studies with them, yes.”

He nodded. “She will.”

“You might ask me,” Naiji suggested.

“Will you?” Talivane asked her kindly. “Our people—”

“I might,” she answered, turning her head away so quickly that her white hair swirled about her.

Talivane smiled. “Good.” He touched a pale strand that rested on her shoulder, then let his hand drop to his side. “I’m not only concerned for our folk, you know. It would be good for you.”

“For you too,” she said.

He seemed surprised. “Me?”

“The Spirit would have killed you if you’d been alone tonight.”

“Maybe.” He laughed. “Very well. We’ll all become students to your foreign friend.”

Light from many candles bathed the hall from the next room. Like the library, it had been kept in a style appropriate to this castle’s history, though the decorations were fewer. The oak dining table could have held fifty guests or more in comfort. Portraits lined the wall above the wainscoting. All were of white-haired folk who watched disdainfully from the places where they had posed so many centuries ago.

The woman at the table was darker than most people I had seen since leaving Istviar, though she would have been thought fair among southerners. Her hair was chestnut and her eyes were violet. Her long dress was a vivid red. When we entered, she stood. She was little taller than a child, but her hips and full bosom and delicate features all proclaimed her maturity.

“Ah,” said Tali vane with a polite nod. “Have you waited long?”

The woman bit her lip, then shook her head.

“Rifkin,” he said, “I would have you meet my wife, the Lady Kivakali.”

The woman watched the Count with apprehension, yet he hardly seemed aware of her existence. Naiji still clung to her brother’s arm as though they were alone in the room. A sandy-haired serving boy at the far doorway watched us all with a carefully guarded mien.

“My lady,” I said, bowing with the flourish I had learned when I served in the Sea Queen’s guards. A shy smile came to Kivakali’s lips, and she nodded to acknowledge me.

Talivane glanced at me out of the corner of his eyes. I could not tell if he thought me mad, strange, presumptuous, or amusing. Naiji’s face tightened to restrain a smirk.

“You...” Kivakali looked at her husband for approval or permission, then said, “are a noble from some far land?”

“From some far land,” I acknowledged. “Hardly a noble, though I thank my lady for her kindness.”

Talivane barked a laugh. “You may say
foolishness
if you wish, Rifkin. My wife is hardly the most perceptive of people.”

Kivakali blushed and flicked her eyes downward.

“Well!” said Talivane. “I’m hungry. Let’s be seated.” He strode to the head of the table.

Naiji looked at me to see what I thought of all this. I pretended not to have noticed. She sat beside her brother, opposite Kivakali, and I, wishing I’d had an opportunity to wash, joined her. We made an odd foursome, Talivane and Kivakali in their finery, Naiji in her dirty hunting garb, and I in my torn and bloodstained traveling dress.

Talivane clapped his hands once. The serving boy hurried over with a tray of porcelain bowls filled with curried lentil soup. I waited a minute for a spoon which did not come, then followed my companions’ example and drank from the bowl. The boy brought two loaves of black bread and a chunk of goat’s cheese. A pitcher of bitter yellow wine followed.

The dinner, though simple, was excellent. The company was not. Naiji chatted of things she had seen in the woods, animals that were out earlier than their wont and plants that grew in formations they had never taken before. Talivane nodded and smiled and acknowledged her every observation without committing himself to an interpretation. Kivakali sat quietly, shoulders slightly slumped, as if to hide herself, only to earn a “Sit as becomes a Gromandiel!” from her husband. She ate little.

“The food’s good,” I said during a moment of silence.

“It’s simple,” said Talivane, “but it pleases me.”

“Can’t get supplies up here, hmm?”

Talivane’s look suggested I would take my meals elsewhere, henceforth. Naiji said, “We sent an expedition east recently. They returned with two wounded guards, no gold, and no goods. They said that bandits fell upon them, but the bandits conducted themselves with military precision. As our people fled, they were cursed for being witches and told to leave the lands of the Kond or die, whichever they preferred.”