“I will be the vessel,” Zok said, unable to keep himself from speaking. Beside him, Hai Hai stood stock-still, as did the girl. Zok’s feet began shuffling forward, and he could not stop his own body.
The voice spoke again, this time to Hai Hai and the girl. You will be servants. You will leave this room and await us.
The girl repeated the words and stepped down from the dais.
Hai Hai droned in repetition: “I will leave this room.” She walked down the steps of the dais. “I will leave this room,” she repeated, “...after you cook my breakfast, eat my cunny, and die by fire!”
The Weavers were confused, their half-rotted minds unable, it seemed, to understand drollery. When Hai Hai flew at them with her sabers, though—they recognized that.
Zok felt his mind clear in an instant. The spell holding him had broken with the Weavers’ concentration. The girl screamed and ran out of the room.
And then Zok heard another voice in his head. A woman’s voice, as different from that of the Weavers as day was from night. Place your hands on the Ebon Chest! Free me! Your worthiness will open the lock! The voice was like sunlight and honey. Zok obeyed it instantly. His placed his hands on the lock.
There was a sound like a thousand chimes, and the lid flew open in a burst of golden light. All movement in the chamber stopped.
The Diamond Diadem floated up out of the Ebon Chest. It revolved slowly in midair, suspended in a beam of golden light, sparkling with the light of a thousand sun-dappled diamonds. Zok had been in the presence of powerful sorcery a hundred times, but nothing like this. He felt waves of pure power and grace wash over his soul.
Something very different happened to the Weavers when the light hit them. There was no flame, but they burned nonetheless. There was a horrible wailing, then robes and mail, flesh and bones all dissolved into ash. And just like that, Zok stood alone in the room with Hai Hai and the true Diamond Diadem of Virgin Queen Glora, which slowly lowered itself back onto the velvet cushion that sat inside the Ebon Chest.
Hear me, Zok Ironeyes! Hear the voice of the light! As with the voices of the Shadow Weavers, the voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. But it was unmistakably a single voice—female, powerful, and clear as a clarion breaking a silent morning. Suddenly the Ebon Chest seemed more a throne than a box.
I am Glora, the Virgin Queen, servant of the Fathergod. I am the Diamond Diadem.
I was made to fight the Shadow Weavers, but they sought to use my power for evil. But you, in your worthiness, have freed me!
But you must not take me to the one who sent you. He means to serve the Fathergod, but he is consumed with pride and ambition. I release you from his power.
Zok heard a tinkling like glass. He felt the amethyst band around his neck crumble to dust. Beside him the same happened to Hai Hai’s.
Over the centuries and millennia, granted glimpses by the Fathergod, I have watched humanity. And I have learned much. One of the things I have learned is that His servants sometimes take the most unlikely shapes. In your impurity, Zok Ironeyes, you are pure. And you have great strength. The strength that the world needs. That is why you must claim me.
Zok finally worked up the power of speech again. “You want me to wear you?”
No. The voice sounded like a pretty woman’s sad smile to his ears. Like clouded sunshine. No, you must destroy me. The power I bear is too great for men to wield. Only now do I see that. Now that I have been found again, this world is in grave danger.
But saving this world of men will mean a long journey and great sacrifice. You must cast me from the peak of Broken Sword Mountain, into the fathomless depths of the Sable Sea. There, the tainted waves will devour me—and I will finally be beyond the reach of men and demons alike.
“And if I don’t?” Zok asked.
There was a long silence. If you do not, Zok Ironeyes, then evil will triumph!
Zok stretched. It had been a hard few days, and he ached all over. “Sorry to say it, Majesty, but I really don’t give a black bear’s bushy balls about all that. Goodbye.” He turned to go.
You do not understand! If I am not destroyed, some evil man—or worse, the Weavers—will find me! Darkness will cover the land! Children will die!
Zok shrugged, listening to the sound of his armor. It was good scale, and if he was lucky he could sell it for a few months’ fancy boarding for Hai Hai and himself. That was about the best that he was going to get out of this miserable little adventure, it seemed. Ah, well. He’d had jobs that paid worse.
“Children die,” he said at last. “The girl was in front of me. That’s why I freed her. As for the rest of it, Majesty... well, the world will take care of itself. It always does.”
Zok stepped to the Ebon Chest. Slowly, carefully, he closed the lid.
As Hai Hai and he walked out of the chamber, the muffled wailing of Virgin Queen Glora’s soul sounded like a harp being played by an angry weasel.
They reached the outside, and footprints in the dust told Zok that the girl had done the same. Good.
Keeping an eye out for any more demon-men, they retrieved the riding beasts. For a long time, they rode in silence. Finally Zok said, “The Weavers’ spell didn’t work on you.”
Hai Hai shrugged. “Soul magic. And, as the fox-fucking Fatherpriests will be quick to tell you, I ain’t got a soul.”
“But the Weavers were fooled. You could have fled alone.”
Another shrug. “We are partners. That means something, right?”
“Right.”
The tips of Hai Hai’s ears drooped in annoyance. “Anyway, if you’re going to burble like a woman about it, get it over with now, huh? We’ve a long ride ahead.”
Zok smiled at his partner, spurred his riding-beast to a scurry, and said not a word.
CAMP FOLLOWER
TRUDI CANAVAN
CONTRARY TO WHAT the soldiers said, it was not after battle that Captain Reny enjoyed the services of the whore in his tent. After battle, he was too exhausted to do more than wash off the blood and gore, even if he only ever fought when the King decided to join the fight, or to protect his leader. Reny was too old for the victorious lustful celebrations the soldiers imagined their commanders enjoyed.
It was during the time between battles, after long meetings to discuss strategy, that he made use of the woman. Aside from the physical release and the sensual pleasure, he gained something even more valuable—a time in which he was free from thought and care. The past and the future did not penetrate his mind.
But all too soon he would be lying awake, his mind starting to dwell on matters best forgotten or ignored. As he was now.
To delay the return of those memories, he looked down at the woman sleeping on the floor beside his narrow stretcher-bed, and thought about her instead. She’d told him her name was Kala, but he doubted that was her true name. It was too common among the camp followers. Apparently it meant ‘lucky charm’, which was far too appealing a name in a time of war to be a real one.
Her waist was narrow, but she widened above and below in ways a woman ought to. He guessed she’d joined the other camp followers not long before he’d noticed her, or she would have been as skinny and wasted as they were. Yet he hadn’t chosen her for her body alone. Something in her eyes reassured him. It was an awareness that told him she knew exactly what she was doing, despite her obvious youth, and wasn’t tormented by it. It was the absence of desperation, loathing, horror or resignation in her face that had caused him to look twice, and invite her to join him.