“What of your truth spell?” Grus asked.
“What of it?” Alca returned. “She—or the Banished One through her—spoke the truth, I think. But he never answered the question I asked.”
“Mph.” Grus grunted, thinking back. “Yes, you’re right. But the woman—or the Banished One—spoke the truth?”
“As far as I could tell. And that spell is a good one,” Alca said.
“Does that mean the gods truly mean nothing to the Banished One?” Grus asked. If it did mean that, if the Banished One was supreme in this world as the gods were in the heavens… If that was so, what point to any of his struggles? None he could see, none at all.
But the witch shook her head. “He said their names meant nothing to him. That, I think, is true. But he is ever one to twist truth and turn it, so that we see it in mirrors within mirrors within mirrors. Take care with him and his words, Your Majesty. Always take care. That their names mean nothing to him does not mean their essence means nothing.”
Grus shivered. “I hope you’re right. If you’re wrong… If you’re wrong, we can never hope to beat him, can we?”
Alca shrugged. “What difference does it make? If the Banished One ever swallows Avornis, all of us will be made into thralls. You can look at things however you please. Me, I’d rather be dead. Dead, I know I’m out of his grasp.”
“Something to that.” Grus looked down into the amphitheater. The thralls in there were indifferent to his presence. They were mostly indifferent to one another, too, though a couple of them sat side by side, picking lice and fleas from each other’s shaggy hair and ragged clothes. The sight didn’t reassure Grus. Lanius’ moncats might have done the same.
“I wish we could free them,” Alca said. “Free all of them, I mean, not just the few here where we have at least a chance of eventually lifting the spells that cloud their minds.” She looked south, toward the Stura and beyond. In a whisper, she went on, “So many of them under the Banished One’s hand. And yet their ancestors were Avornans, just as ours were. It isn’t right that they should be made into beasts.”
“No, it isn’t,” Grus agreed. “Winning a war against the Menteshe—and against the Banished One—won’t be easy, though. Crossing the Stura to win wars against them would be even harder than beating them back from our own land.”
He thought about Lanius again. Lanius knew more Avornan history than Grus cared to contemplate. He knew how many efforts to push the border south of the Stura once more had come to grief. He would undoubtedly be able to give plenty of good reasons why one more would come to grief, too.
One of those good reasons also seemed only too obvious to Grus. “How can we possibly hope to beat the Banished One?” he asked. “Every time Avornis has tried to cross the Stura since the Menteshe took the Scepter of Mercy from us, we’ve had disasters.” He’d known that much before Lanius gave him the gruesome details, though he hadn’t known how gruesome they were.
“Mostly, he works through men,” Alca insisted. “We can beat the Menteshe taken by themselves, can’t we? If we can’t do that, all else fails.”
“True.” Grus made a sour face. “Some of the princes who rule the Menteshe aren’t anything much. Prince Ulash, though, who holds the lands right across the river from where we are now… He’s a cunning old fox, Ulash is. He’d be no bargain even if the Banished One didn’t back him.”
“Why worry about him, then? Why not go after some of the others—some of the easier ones?”
“For one thing, if we get tied up in a war somewhere else along the river, what’s he likely to do? Jump on us with both feet, that’s what. And, for another”—King Grus lowered his voice, not that that was likely to do him much good—“Wash’s capital is Yozgat.”
“Oh,” Alca said in a small voice. Yozgat—where the Scepter of Mercy was held. She bobbed her head to Grus. “Those are good points. Plainly, I would never make a general.”
“Well, I would never make a wizard, and that’s even plainer.” Grus stared down into the amphitheater again. It was alarmingly like watching animals in a cage. It didn’t feel like watching people at all. Realizing that hurt.
Alca didn’t disagree with him. She went back to the problem he’d been worrying at, too, and asked, “If we got into a fight with any one of the Menteshe princes, won’t all of them rush to his aid?”
“I don’t think so,” Grus answered. “It hasn’t worked that way up till now, anyhow. The Menteshe have a lot more—freedom of will, I guess you’d call it—than thralls do. They wouldn’t be much use to the Banished One if they acted like… that.” He pointed into the amphitheater. “He needs them able to think and to fight. And they do fight—among themselves, too, sometimes. They won’t come to each other’s aid unless that looks like a good idea to them.”
“I see.” Alca frowned as she worked through what that was likely to mean. “Then… even if the Banished One disappeared tomorrow—”
“Gods grant that he would!” Grus exclaimed, and then, “Excuse me for interrupting.”
“It’s all right, Your Majesty.” The witch went back to her own train of thought. “Even if the Banished One disappeared tomorrow, the Menteshe would still be just as dangerous to us as ever.”
“Not quite,” Grus answered. “They wouldn’t have his magic, his might, backing them. But they would still be dangerous, the same way the Thervings are dangerous. They’re on our border, they’re tough fighters, and they wouldn’t mind taking our land away from us.”
“I see,” Alca said again. Now she looked down at the thralls. After a minute or so, biting her lip, she turned away from the amphitheater. “That is a monstrous sorcery, robbing them of so much of what it means to be human.”
“Yes.” Grus went on, “I wonder if the Banished One feels the same way about Olor and Quelea and the rest of the gods. When they cast him out of the heavens, didn’t they rob him of most of what it means to be divine?”
Alca started to answer, then checked herself. “I never thought of that,” she said slowly. “I wonder if anyone has ever thought of it. You should talk it over with a high-ranking cleric, not with me. If we understand the Banished One, perhaps we’ll have a better chance of doing something about him. How clever you are, Your Majesty! That would never have occurred to me.”
Grus didn’t feel particularly clever, and he had his doubts about whether understanding the Banished One would do much to hold him back. The problem with trying to oppose him was his divine, or nearly divine, strength. How much would understanding him let the Avornans, or anyone else, undercut that? Not much—not as far as Grus could see.
But he could see other possibilities if Alca happened to be impressed with him. “Will you have supper with me tonight?” he asked, as casually as he could.
The smile Alca gave back wasn’t one of eager assent. It was a woman’s amused smile. “Remember what happened the last time you asked me that, Your Majesty?”
“Yes,” he said. “I don’t think that will happen again.”
“How do you mean that?” she asked. “Do you mean you won’t try feeling me up, or do you mean you think I’ll enjoy it more this time?”
He muttered under his breath. He thought he’d phrased that so slyly. He didn’t seem as clever as he thought he was, let alone as she thought he was. “I mean whatever you want me to mean,” he said at last.
“Do you?” Alca said. Grus gave back a nod that challenged her to call him a liar. For a moment, he thought she would. But then she smiled again, the same mostly wry smile she’d used before. “All right, Your Majesty. How could I possibly doubt you?” The words said she couldn’t. Her tone said something else altogether.