He moved on to investigate the shouting mob around the cart. Half a dozen men were standing on it and the rest were steadying it as those above raised something onto a jury-rigged chair. Chies had to wait until they had it roped in place and started jumping down before he got a proper look at it. It was large, a sickly white color, and barely human; even bigger than Marno Cavotti. Ice devils were always pale and he had heard of the pallor that corpses acquired, but that thing was a horrible, fish-belly shade. The only color on it was the pale pink tongue that hung from its mouth and a purple necklace, a dark gash where the flesh had been crushed and cut by a garrote. The men were going to parade this corpse through the streets of Celebre for everyone to jeer and pelt it with garbage. Oh, Father!
His father. The Fist. Now he would never meet his father, never speak with him, offer to help him, hear stories of his conquests. All his glory had come to this? He felt his shock turning to anger. This was Orlad Celebre’s doing. Back in Veritano Orlad had wanted to tear his head off.
Claws grabbed his arm again, his other arm this time.
“We must avenge your father, boy!”
“Yes, Aunt. Yes!”
“Where will she be?”
“She? Luenzi said Orlad did it.”
“Oh, yes, we’ll get the Werist too, never fear! And that eunuch. And the Mutineer! All of them. Chosen look after their own, boy, I’ve told you that, haven’t I? And when we can’t defend them, we avenge them. But we must start with the girl. She’s the dangerous one. Where is the girl? Make her wish she had never been born.”
“Let’s go and find her.” He would not argue with the old bat when she was in this sort of a mood.
It was easy. Four Werists sat outside the doors to the family wing, which meant that Cavotti must be in there. Fabia would be with her husband, learning the joys of married life. Chies strengthened his veiling until the candles were barely visible. Curiously, his aunt became more visible to him, not less. The Heroes were busily fighting the evening’s battles all over again and paid no heed as he opened the door and ushered her inside.
There was even a Werist on a chair outside the state sleeping chamber. Chies shed his veil. The man leaped to his feet with an oath.
“You will obey me! Do not shout. Do not battleform!” This godlike power was very enjoyable. “Is the new doge in there?”
The Hero nodded, flapping his mouth like a fish. He was a veteran, older and well scarred, and his eyes were as blank as glass beads.
“Is his new wife with him?”
“I do not know.”
“Lie down and sleep. Sleep until dawn, no matter what happens.”
Chies turned to smile at his aunt and couldn’t find her. The door swung open by itself. He followed her in.
The hall was so huge that he was startled to find Cavotti and the woman right there, just inside the door. He was wearing a badly stained green chlamys and she a white silk web. Chies had barely had time to decide that he wanted to study her at leisure when his aunt blasted them both. The Mutineer hurtled back against a chair, which collapsed in a mess of kindling. The woman landed on her back several paces away.
Chies closed and bolted the door.
Cavotti was half sitting on a litter of firewood, half reclining against the wall. Only his eyes were moving. Fabia raised herself on her elbows and stared at Saltaja, who was now fully visible in all her mutilated horror.
“You’re too revolting to be a nightmare.”
“You don’t know what horror is, child. I am about to teach you.”
“I don’t think you are.” The dogaressa climbed to her feet with a fascinating revelation of legs. She dusted herself off and adjusted her wrap, frowned at Chies. “What have you done to the boy?” She seemed strangely unworried. Did she not understand that she was being threatened by a Chosen?
Cavotti made grunting noises and twitched. Deciding that the giant was out of commission and posed no danger, Chies turned his attention fully to the two women’s confrontation. His sister was a real stiffener in that filmy, flimsy thing. He did not think his help was going to be needed.
“Nothing,” Saltaja said, drooling and slobbering. “And if you think I’m ugly, wait until you see what I do to your pretty face. I will not kill you. That would be too easy. Belly worms. Tumors. Suppurating sores. Madness, so they lock you up. You will have years to sit in your cell, suffering and mourning your folly.”
“Your time is over,” the girl said calmly. “Your brothers are all dead, did you know? I assume Cutrath Horoldson was with you in the Edgelands. Did you manage to rescue him as well as yourself? If not, then you and this boy are the only two left out of the whole disgusting brood. The Mother has tired of you. She has withdrawn Her favor.” She had not so much glanced at her petrified husband yet, keeping her attention on the hag.
Who chuckled. “No, dearie! I am much more in her favor than you are. Remember those guards I set over you at Tryfors? The Heroes who let you escape? I sacrificed them to Her glory. Fifteen strong, healthy young men bleeding into the cold earth!”
“Yes, I know. I saw.”
“You lie!” Saltaja shrieked. “She would not let you spy on me. Then there were two score I marched into the Dust River so I could walk across on their bodies. There were others we ate. And the Werists on the Altiplano-another ten! What have you offered Her that would compare with that?”
Fabia grimaced. “I do not believe that the Old One values Her Chosen by tallying their murders, but if you want to keep score by body count, then I counter with the whole escort you took on the Nardalborg Pass trail. It was my idea to let you close it behind you all the way to Fist’s Leap and then slam the gate in your face. I had to talk even my Werist brother into that! All those deaths-a whole hunt, wasn’t it? They were already dead men when you started eating them. They count to my credit, not yours.”
Saltaja screamed and hurled a bolt of black fire at her. Fabia must have been expecting something like it, for she countered with one of her own, and they coalesced in a wall of black flame midway between them. It crackled and flared-and slowly advanced toward Fabia. The two Chosen were locked in a trial of strength. Chies could hear his aunt wheezing with the effort it cost. Then Fabia started to back away, and at once the flames leaped at her. She went down, screaming and writhing in an unholy blaze.
Saltaja laughed and released the evil. Fabia lay naked on charred and smoking rugs, struggling feebly to rise. She had apparently saved herself from harm so far, but she was clearly the loser of that round.
“Now that we’ve established who is the stronger, dearie, we can begin the entertainment. I think those pretty breasts first.”
Chies decided he did not approve of this. Even if Saltaja was winning this battle, she had lost all the others and he had his own future to consider. Fabia had befriended him at Veritano. How could he favor a horror like Saltaja over her? Watch her be tortured and mutilated? No! He lifted one of the rock-crystal lover cups from the table and swung it with all his strength. The impact threw wine over Cavotti and shattered the carving into a shower of hail. It didn’t do much for the old bat’s skull, either.
FABIA CELEBRE
felt as if she had just been dropped from the palace roof onto a gravel path and the palace was about to fall on top of her. Marno’s eyes were bulging. So were Chies’s, although for different reasons. Saltaja was probably not dead.