“My lady? You asked to see me?”
“Good of you to come, my lord. Flankleader, wait outside, please. Allow no one in.” Guitha was still there, but she would notice nothing. “I need your help, Huntleader.” The moment she came within range, Saltaja immobilized him.
“You will obey me,” she said, taking a grip on his arm.
No response, except eyes rolling in sudden terror.
“You will obey me!” She was pushing power into solid muscle and meeting equally solid resistance. A most determined young man! But she had no time for pity. “In the name of holy Xaran, I command you!”
The shock of hearing that forbidden name collapsed Fellard’s resistance like a bubble. Mumble: “I will… obey you.”
Better! “Kneel!”
Werists knelt to no one, not even to holy Weru Himself. Horrified to find himself obeying, Fellard sank slowly, like some forest giant toppling, but his knees struck the flagstones with a crack that made Saltaja wince. He stared up at her, eyes stretched wide, face white and slick with sweat.
She peered into his mind. It was hard to make out anything through the surging waves of terror, but she could not entrance him yet, not until she had found her way around. Fear… the source of fear… and the object of it, which must be she. This was probably his pain center
… she jabbed and he responded with a gasp of agony. Anger?… a twist there and she had him shivering like a horse in fly season. And that must be his sex? Yes, a touch or two there and he moaned with delight.
Now she could put him into a trance and inspect the rest of his mind. Very tidy and precise it was, with motivations ranked like the onyx pillars of Jat-Nogul. She poked the most dominant.
“Speak! Who do you see?”
He gasped a few times, then began babbling, “Weru, god, Hero, Weru, warbeast…”
That was himself, his identity. She left it and tried another.
“Vulture… m-my lord?…”
Therek. She tried the one she thought represented herself.
“The hag…”
Hag, was it? He was going to pay for that. She tried another.
“Puss? Oh, Puss… love…”
Huntleader Fellard was a busy man. She discovered no less than four women in his life, with Puss the current favorite. There were three children, too, which she did not try to relate to mothers. Also parents and a couple of siblings or childhood friends. Those had all faded to background, dead or far away. She ripped them out, ignoring his whimpers of pain. Then the lovers, all four of them-snap, break, cut away. Therek she left, but much decreased. Her own identity she inflated enormously, tying it to fear and sex and his own self-image. This was far more brutal than the simple Dominance she had used on Ern and Brarag. When the conversion was finished, she was the only person left in Huntleader Fellard’s life. He would be devoted to her, obsessed by her. There! She released him, and he crumpled to the floor, gasping and weeping.
She tottered over to a chair. She was shaking too, head throbbing. “Come here!”
He tried to stand, failed, and compromised by crawling to her on hands and knees, looking like a corpse escaping from a graveyard. When he arrived, he sank down to kiss her foot. He mumbled something of which only “My lady…” was audible.
Usually she managed to tamper with her subjects’ motivations and leave their other mental processes intact, at least in the short term, but Fellard would not last long after this butchery. In a couple of thirties he would be a gibbering animal. Fortunately, she did not need him for long.
“What do you want?”
“To serve you. Always. To serve you.” He looked up with a hound’s glazed devotion.
“Rise.” She waited impatiently while he struggled to his feet. “You will obey me and serve me, but you will forget what has happened since you walked in.”
He shook his head a few times to clear it, then his pupils dilated and he gave her the same lecherous smile he had given the girl yesterday. He was Saltaja’s, body and soul.
“How may I be of service, my lady?”
“The Celebre prisoner has escaped.”
“I heard.” He tried hard not to grin, but not quite hard enough. “That is extremely distressing, my lady! Apparently Hostleader Therek ordered that she was to be guarded…” The amusement faded into incredulity.
“Yes?”
“… on pain of death. But…” He smiled grotesquely. “But that is only an expression! Werists can’t be put to death. I mean who…? How? I expect your honored brother will punish them severely, but… not put
… to…”
“There are eight of them locked in the room. You know where I mean?”
“Yes, my lady.” He was seriously worried now.
“Go and get them. Take them to the herb garden and kill them.”
“My lady! They will resist. Innocent men will-”
“Think of it as a training exercise,” she said. “Kill them. In the herb garden. You will obey me.”
Face white as bone, Huntleader Fellard whispered, “I will obey you.”
FABIA CELEBRE
had never truly expected to be forced into marrying a Werist, but it was nice to think that Cutrath Horoldson no longer lurked in her future. He could vanish over the Edge and enjoy his military career without ever knowing about the wedded bliss he had so narrowly escaped. She had other problems to worry about.
Free Spirit was a typical riverboat-long and shallow, with two masts bearing triangular lateen sails. She might rank a little older and smellier than most, but Dantio knew her of old and had judged that she was speedy enough to outrun any likely pursuit. Her crew and owners were an extended family of around twenty people, ranging from babes to ancients. The boat was their home and the heap of bales and boxes amidships their worldly wealth. By custom, the passengers sat in the bow and the crew stayed huddled in the stern, swathed in red or brown burnooses, chattering in their strange singsong.
The rain had stopped just as Free Spirit left the Wrogg and proceeded up a tributary, the Little Stony. Now the world was steaming in watery sunshine and a ramshackle ferry dock had come into view ahead. The banks were marshy and the surrounding woods scrubby, but to the southeast the dramatic cone of Mount Varakats shone hugely white against a sky of midnight blue.
Fabia was seated on the port shelf next to Horth Wigson, almost touching knees with lady Ingeld opposite. Ingeld was between Flankleader Guthlag and Benard, who presently had his arm around her quite shamelessly. She was being as charming as ever, but she hadn’t eaten anything all morning. Had her idiot brother gotten her with child?
No one was saying much, as they were all lost in their worries. They all knew that Saltaja and Therek could not be written off yet, and Ingeld insisted that Horold was pursuing her upriver, so Hrag jaws might yet close on the fugitives. Orlad had been condemned to die today and might already be dead. Dantio had stayed behind in Tryfors to watch what happened-Witnesses were notoriously nosey people, he admitted, but he would be in no danger because no one could sneak up on a seer. And somewhere there were the mysterious rebels, poised to strike at Tryfors.
Apart from their common concerns, they all had their own worries. Fabia and Dantio wanted to return to Celebre, but the pass might be closed already. Benard was being evasive about going to Florengia, because he could not leave Ingeld. Fabia did not want to abandon Horth, who was much dearer to her than the true father she could not remember. Ingeld must be worrying about Cutrath, on his way to a war that now seemed to be lost.