Ista glanced across at the Jokonan embassy drawn up before the gate to accept her surrender. Some dozen horsemen were assembled— mostly soldiers, together with three officers. Ista recognized Prince Sordso instantly. The translator-officer rode nervously by his side. The other officer, a heavy, leathery, bronze-skinned man with gray-bronze hair, was also a sorcerer-slave; Ista saw by the ascendant demon light that filled his skin. As with Sordso, a twisting ribbon of light floated from his belly back toward the distant green tents.
Also tethered thus was the one horsewoman, or rather, a woman who rode pillion Roknari-style behind a servant, sitting sideways on a padded chair atop the horse's haunches with her feet demurely disposed on a little shelf. The sorceress wore courtly, trailing garments, and a broad-brimmed hat tied below her chin with dark green ribbons. She was a much younger woman than Joen, though neither maidenly nor beautiful. She stared intently at Ista.
Ista stepped out after Illvin, keeping her eyes upon his face and not the dark drop below, which was deliberately lined at the bottom with sharp rocks and glinting broken glass. Cattilara's sandals slipped on her sweating feet. Illvin reached to clasp her hand, a hard grip, and pulled her to stand upon the dusty ground beyond. Instantly, the board was jerked back, scraping through the postern door, which was then clapped shut.
The woman rode closer. Even as Ista looked up to return her glower, the demon light within her faded, until Ista only saw skin and clothing. The mere expression of a face, not the colors of a soul. Ista's breath caught, and she looked again at Sordso. Now he appeared no more than a golden-haired young man upon a prancing black horse. Not one of the sorcerers flung up their hands, wincing at the glare of Ista's god light, nor did the demons cringe within them—she could not see the demons within them.
My inner sight is stolen. I am blinded.
Something else was missing. The pressure of the god upon her back, which had borne her forward floating as if in a dream since that bloodstained dawn upon the north tower, was gone as well. Behind her, only an empty silence loomed. Infinitely empty, since so infinitely filled just moments before. She tried frantically to think when she had last felt the god's hands upon her shoulders. She was certain He had been with her in the forecourt, when she had spoken with dy Cabon. She thought He had been with her when she'd stepped onto the board across the cleft.
He was not with me when I stepped off.
Her useless outer eyes blurred with terror and loss. She could barely breathe, as though her chest was bound tight with heavy cords. What have I done wrong?
"Who is this?" asked Prince Sordso, pointing at Illvin.
The bronze-skinned sorcerer pushed his horse up next to the prince's and stared down in surprise at Illvin, who looked back coolly. "I believe it is Ser Illvin dy Arbanos himself, Your Highness—Lord Arhys's bastard brother, the bane of our borders". Sordso's blond eyebrows went up. "The new commander of Porifors! What does he here? Ask him where is the other woman." He gestured at his translator.
The officer rode nearer to Illvin. "You, dy Arbanos! The agreement was for the dowager royina and the daughter of the march of Oby," he said in Ibran. "Where is Lady Cattilara dy Lutez?"
Illvin favored him with a slight, ironic bow. His eyes were icy black. "Gone to join her husband. When, watching last night from the tower,
she felt him die, she flung herself from the parapet and gave her grief to the stones below. She lies now waiting to be buried, when you withdraw as you agreed and we can again reach our graveyards. I come in her place, and to serve Royina Ista as warder and attendant. Since, having seen your armies and their dubious discipline once before, the royina did not desire to bring her handmaidens among you."
The translator's brows drew down, and not only at the oblique trailing insult. He repeated the news to Sordso and the others. The sorceress nudged her rider to bring her closer. "Is this true?" she demanded.
"Look yourselves for what you really seek, then," said Illvin, with a bow in her direction. "I should think Prince Sordso could recognize the remnants of his own sister Umerue from this distance, if she were still... well, alive is not quite the right term, now, is it? If she were still residing within Lady Cattilara behind those walls." The translator jerked in his saddle, though whether in surprise at Illvin's message or at the tongue in which it was spoken, Ista was not sure. Sordso, the bronze-skinned officer, and the sorceress all turned their heads toward Porifors, their expressions growing intent and inward.
"Nothing," breathed Sordso after a moment. "It is gone." The sorceress eyed Illvin. "That one knows too much." "My poor sister-in-law is dead, and the creature you lost is fled beyond your reach," said Illvin. "Shall we get this over with?" At a nod from the prince, two soldiers dismounted. They first took the precaution of checking Illvin for concealed blades in his sash and boots; he suffered their hands with a look of bored displeasure. Tension flowed into his long body when one of the soldiers approached Ista, relaxing only slightly when the man knelt by her white skirts.
"You are to take off your shoes," the translator called to her. "You will walk barefoot and bareheaded into the presence of the August Mother, as befitting a lesser woman and a Quintarian heretic."
Illvin's chin went up and his jaw set. Whatever objections he had been about to voice, though, he closed his teeth upon. It was an interesting subtlety, Ista thought, that they did not also demand Illvin's boots. The disparity only drove home his impotence to protect her.
The man's hot hands pawed at the ribbons Liss had so lately tied around Ista's ankles. She stood rigidly, but did not resist. He pulled the light sandals away from her feet and threw them aside. He stood, backed away, and remounted his horse.
Sordso rode up to her, his eyes searching her from head to foot. He smiled grimly at what he saw—or possibly at what he didn't see. In any case, he did not fear to turn his back on her, for he gestured her sharply to take position directly behind his horse in the procession forming up. Illvin tried to offer her his arm, but the bronze-skinned officer pulled his sword and pointed with it for him to walk behind her. Sordso's hand rose and fell in signal, and they started off across the dry, uneven ground.
Ista was barely conscious of the brass-bright noon through which she stumbled. She groped inside her mind, within an echoing darkness. Called silent curses to the Bastard. Then, silent prayers. Nothing came back.
Were the Jokonan sorcerers doing this? Defeating a god in the realm of matter? Surely these opponents could not overwhelm this god... ?
Not the god's failure, then, but hers; her spirit gates had somehow been shut again, broken and tumbled in, choked with stones of fear, anger, or humiliation, denying the new-dilated passage...
She had made a mistake, some monstrous mistake, somewhere in the past few fleeting minutes. Maybe she had been supposed to give this task, to give the god, to dy Cabon after all. Maybe keeping it for herself had been the great presumption, a huge and fatal presumption. Overweening arrogance, to imagine such a task was given to her. Who would be stupid enough to give such a task to her?
The gods. Twice. It was a puzzle, how beings so vast could be so vastly mistaken. I knew better than to trust them. Yet here I am— again...