“No! No! Stop them! That’s horrible.” Fabia screamed and covered her eyes, which did no good at all, because she could still see. She heard Saltaja’s coarse chuckle very close to her and backed away quickly, unwilling to come within reach of those gory claws.
“No, it is beautiful! It is an offering to the Mother, our lady. Look again, child!”
Fabia obeyed reluctantly. The living Heroes had departed, leaving mangled bodies everywhere-some human, some bestial, some both. And blood! Everywhere blood. The only living thing in the wasteland was Saltaja herself, rolling and wallowing in the gory mire, spreading it on herself, eating it.
And Saltaja was also at her side. “Do you understand now, foolish child? They were my gift to the Ancient One! You gave her Pukar, yes? And Perag. But I have given her multitudes in my time, and just this morning these fifteen strong young men. There was a girl, too, later. You cannot win, Fabia Celebre. I am stronger. I will always be stronger. Come and serve me!”
Her eyes-very dark eyes for a Vigaelian-seemed suddenly to blaze. “You will obey me!”
“No!” Fabia twisted away from her clutch and dove into the cold earth of the garden, down into the realm of the Mother. Like most Skjarans, she was a strong swimmer, and she swam swiftly through the darkness. The rock felt like water, offering no more resistance. This is a very odd dream, she thought, but I expect it means something. She saw the dead, standing like pale water weeds, rank on rank, watching her, rippling as she went past, but never trying to block her. Nor would they ever help her. They were dead and nothing mattered to them now, deep in the abode of the Most Ancient. Groves of them, a forest of wraiths, watched her pass through; they knew she was there, but they did not care. When she felt she was a safe distance away from Saltaja, she turned on her back and let herself float upward until she was back on her sleeping rug.
Shivering, she tried to force herself awake and rid her mind of the lingering taste of horror. It was hard to believe that even the Queen of Shadows could be as evil as she had appeared in the nightmare, but it had not been a nightmare, it had been a vision, a sending. Would the Mother of Lies lie about one of Her own? Had She been warning Fabia of the depths of Saltaja’s evil and the strength of her powers, or had She been explaining that murder was a necessary part of Her worship and Fabia would have to start behaving like a faithful devotee? No! Fabia would not become another Saltaja. She would be like Paola Apicella, who had been a loving, caring foster mother and wife, not a murdering monster! Yes, Paola had killed Karvak Hragson and at least one of the assassin gang that slew her, but only in self-defense, yes?
How can you believe that? whispered a scathing inner doubt, a fading echo of Saltaja’s mockery. You think you know these things only because She told you so. She never showed you how Paola was initiated. She never explained how Paola’s own baby died, did She? Can you blame the poor woman? She had lost her husband while she was giving birth and both she and the child were sure to starve to death, since the Fist’s men had taken all the food. Much better to give the babe to Xaran right away.
“No!”
Certainly. The Old One rewarded her with another child and a new life. Why do you suppose She is called the Mother of Lies? She tricked you into swearing allegiance and now She is calling for her due.
Trembling with doubt and terror, Fabia hugged herself in the darkness. Had she been a fool when she chose to follow her foster mother’s goddess? Was she destined to descend from horror to horror? Must she be a Princess of Shadows, following in the Queen’s bloody footsteps?
No! Feeble though her powers must be by Saltaja’s standards, Fabia would use them for good, not evil. Rescuing Witness Tranquility would definitely not be an evil deed. So, had the vision contained any guidance? If it had, then Xaran was willing to help her in doing good. In her prayers earlier, she had asked to overhear the satrap’s passwords, thinking that this might be the sort of help she could give Dantio without blatantly declaring her allegiance. What she had received instead had been very horrible. Why?
Why that impossible illusion of swimming through rock? If Chosen could do that, people would not bury them alive.
The poky cowhide tent the riverfolk had set up for her was as black as the depths of the earth had seemed in her dream, but warmer and smellier. And quiet. The camp was asleep, so the satrap’s men had not invaded. The night was running away and the seer remained captive-unless those crazy brothers of hers had already tried something and gotten themselves killed.
She reexamined the conclusions she had reached before drifting off to sleep. Orlad, bitter and confused, was trying to adjust to a new world, to the mere idea of friends and family-poor Orlad! And poor Benard, facing responsibilities for the first time in his life with the knowledge that no Hand could ever be practical or responsible. And Dantio, who could never marry, never have family of his own, still trying to play big brother to all of them-Dantio plagued by the debt he owed his foster mother Tranquility. And Fabia herself, wanting to mother them, because she was a devotee of the Mother, the goddess who would eventually gather them all to Her bosom. That still seemed like her duty, though. She must encourage this fragile family cooperation by helping out with the mad rescue.
She unlaced the door and peered out. The fire pit was a faint glow of embers, the only landmark, because clouds had covered the stars. Extrinsics would be effectively blind. The seer would not be and probably not Orlad if he battleformed. Even Benard, when he had rescued her in Tryfors, had been very sure of his way through the dark streets, so his gentle goddess might help him see in the dark, too. The bright side of the darkness was that a Florengian would need very little veiling to be completely invisible to sentries, both Horold’s and Orlad’s. A reconnaissance should be in order, or at least a preliminary look at what a reconnaissance would involve. It would be horribly easy to get lost in a maze of scrubby little islands with no stars to guide her.
Oh! So that was what the dream had been telling her!
She whispered a prayer of veiling, cloaking herself in darkness more impenetrable than any she ever had tried before. Then she slipped out of the tent and picked her way carefully through the prickly undergrowth to where Free Spirit had been beached. If Orlad had posted sentries, none of them would see the naked Florengian moving through the night.
The water was cold, but not impossibly so. She stepped in, treading squishy mud and weeds, until the channel was deep enough to swim. Even then she kept her head above water and floated in a sort of crouch, propelling herself with her feet. There was just enough current to tell upstream from down even with no stars visible. If she was detected, she could vanish into the dark waters just as her dream self had escaped from Saltaja. Werists could not track in water.
They could probably turn into seals or lobsters if they had to, though. And finding her way back was going to be a lot trickier than she had expected. She had forgotten just how many islands and channels there were. Sometimes she found open water, wide and deep, and had to swim. At other times the branch she was following twisted around or died out in a tangle of weeds and mud, forcing her to backtrack. She passed a score of beached or tethered boats, many of them solitary and easily mistaken for Free Spirit. Then suddenly both sides of the channel were lined with them and she knew she had arrived at the Heroes’ camp. She put her feet down and paused to consider the problem. The boats had been beached along one side, tied up on the other, where the bank was steeper and the water deeper. But which one did she need?