Chapter 6:
The Eyes of the Reaper
I
Mortar and chipped brick erupted from the strike of Marcan’s hammer, flying past the three men to rattle on the concrete walkway behind. The second blow smashed a head-sized hole in the wall, propelling shattered masonry into the darkness, where it clattered against unseen stones.
Light from Antires’ lantern glistened off Marcan’s sweat-slick bald spot as he lowered the hammer and peered through the opening.
Hanuvar turned to scan the darkness to left and right, alert for the glow of distant, lantern-bearing patrolmen, or the scuff of approaching feet. Chances that guards would venture into the sewers in the dead of night were fairly remote, but not to be completely disregarded.
The shuttered lantern showed brick walls sloping to arch overhead, a few feet of narrow walkway where he stood with Antires and Marcan, and the hint of ripples in the sewer channel a foot below the walkway’s edge.
When this expedition had been proposed, Hanuvar had been prepared for a stinking journey through filthy waters. The Dervan Empire, though, even in this little river town, prided themselves on their engineering. It was possible to walk upright upon either side of the sewer, which was flushed regularly by overflow from the aqueduct that swept cold water down from nearby hills. While an unpleasant tang lingered in the air, he had walked down alleyways that smelled far worse.
He returned his attention to his companions just as Marcan hefted the sledge and smashed a third time. The impact echoed through the tunnel.
Antires shifted uncomfortably at the sound, searching the darkness for any who might have been alerted. Hanuvar understood his friend’s concern but doubted the noise could be pinpointed from above, even if someone did hear it.
Like Hanuvar and Marcan, Antires wore a simple tunic and sandals. Should they be seen and questioned, each could claim to be maintenance workers. The Herrene bore himself without complaint, but there was no missing his nervousness. The defacement of state engineering projects would hardly be celebrated by the Dervan government, let alone if they were carried out in the company of Hanuvar Cabera, the empire’s most hated enemy. Likely Marcan would not be breaking public works with such cavalier abandon if he knew the true identity of one of the men who’d descended with him.
Marcan remained certain that his best friend, Antires’ late uncle, had been killed because of something he’d seen during the sewer repairs he and their fellow laborers had undertaken last month. With fearless, single-minded devotion, Marcan had led them through the darkened streets and into the labyrinth of tunnels to this place.
“Here,” Marcan said, his voice rasping and gravelly even as he whispered. He pointed to the wide hole he’d opened in the wall amongst the small square of clean new bricks.
Hanuvar looked into the dark cavity, seeing a space that stretched into the gloom. Antires joined him.
“No one was aware there was anything back there,” Marcan said. “Certainly not some closed-off tunnel. Plaunus found it, and when he did, he headed in with Aridian’s big slave and a couple of others.” He leaned his sledge against the wall, and continued grimly. “He never came out.”
He was repeating himself a little, as men did when aggrieved, and he simmered still over the injustice of his friend’s death. He had already explained that he thought Plaunus hadn’t died because of falling masonry, but had been slain by the servants of the patrician who’d hired them. Aridian’s slaves and servants had not permitted anyone into the hidden chamber afterward to see what had happened.
Marcan set his hands to the bricks on one side of the hole. “You can see just how badly they finished the repair job. They wouldn’t let trained brick men back in to patch it. Look at that mortar work.”
Antires politely pretended interest then answered briskly. “Well, let’s see what they were hiding.”
Marcan lifted the lantern in one beefy hand. Its doors squeaked as he forced them wide. He had the sturdy, broad build of a man who’d labored all his life. His belly was thick, but he didn’t look soft. He stepped through the gap.
“It stretches back quite a ways,” his voice rang hollowly from the other side.
Antires stepped through. After a final survey of their surroundings, Hanuvar followed.
“A hidden room,” Antires said.
As Hanuvar joined them he discovered a rectangular side chamber longer than it was wide. The bricks in its walls were smaller than those of the sewer channel, and a dirty brown color. The floor was packed earth. The brick ceiling arched to a much less pronounced degree than the tunnel’s, and one side sagged noticeably. Hanuvar was uncomfortably aware of the thirty or more feet of dirt above.
“This isn’t part of the sewer, is it?” Antires asked. Even when speaking quietly he had the learned diction of an actor and orator. Hanuvar had seen him take on many roles, and knew he could easily duplicate Marcan’s gruff vernacular if he wished.
“No part of the sewer at all,” Marcan agreed. “I wonder how that patrician knew it was hidden here? I bet all the repairs he sponsored were really just an excuse to find this place.” Marcan’s shifting lantern light fell upon a bronze door, black with age, at the rear of the little chamber. As the three men stopped in front of it, Hanuvar saw four separate iron crossbars stretched horizontally across the bronze. Once, they had been set into the brick. Someone had torn them free, and recently, judging from the fresh scatter of brown brick dust at the door’s base. Then, after being pulled out, the rusty bars had been restored.
“The bars are on the outside,” Antires observed. The actor usually didn’t make a habit of stating the obvious. “Anyone who wanted inside could simply have chipped these out of their housing.”
“Yes,” Hanuvar agreed. “Whoever built this meant to keep something from getting out.”
The Herrene looked at him sidelong. “I knew that—but it’s a cursed thing to say out loud in the underworld. Do you think that something inside there killed my uncle?”
“If some thing had killed him, I don’t think even a rich man could have stopped the rumors,” Hanuvar answered. “Your uncle may have been killed so he wouldn’t tell anyone about what was found inside.”
Marcan nodded stolidly. “That’s the truth of it. There’s no spirits in the sewers. As many times as Plaunus and I have been down here on projects, we’d have seen something if there were. What I don’t see are any big chunks of rock lying around that could have smashed him flat, like Aridian’s big slave told us.”
Antires eyed the door doubtfully. “I suppose we’d better look inside.”
Hanuvar’s gaze shifted from the bars to the door itself and locked upon the two ovals on the bronze at head height. Some ancient hand had drawn them, and for a brief moment, staring at the faded gold circles with their black centers, Hanuvar imagined he was confronted by malignant eyes.
He was no more keen to open that door than he’d been to enter the sewer, but this was a family matter for Antires, and as the Herrene’s friend he was honor bound to assist him.
Antires widened the lantern beam as far as he could. While Marcan tugged the bars free of their housing, Hanuvar shifted his attention from the opening they’d made over to the walls about them, and then to the ceiling and its low spot. He had long since removed the sheathed sword from the tool satchel he’d carried over one shoulder, and he now buckled it on. He fully expected anything left beyond that door would be unable to harm him, but he’d seen men die for trusting too strongly in their expectations.
Marcan grunted as he pushed the door open. Hanuvar thought it would creak—the metal hinges must have been untouched for centuries—but of course the Dervans who’d been here before them had oiled the hinges. They were practical in everything, from sewer repair to tomb robbery to genocide.
The door revealed a rectangular space alive with color. Antires stepped over the threshold, hand to his knife hilt. Marcan went after, and both men were soon inspecting the small chamber.
Hanuvar knew no reason all three of them should be on the far side of a door that could seal them within and so remained where he was. He could see all he needed from where he stood, in any case.
From the packed dirt floor to waist height the chamber’s walls were red—not the red of a warm, comforting fire, but a rich crimson shade, like blood. Then there was a dividing line, a barrier of black stark and sudden as death. Above it the wall was whitewashed, and there Hanuvar saw a parade of bright, stiff figures and symbols. He could speak more than a dozen tongues, and knew the writing of them all, but these were letters in a language he did not understand.
There were figures as well, similar to those he’d seen in ancient tomb drawings: figures who genuflected to a large man in a chair, and others who presented him with goods. That same ruler stood facing an army of warriors in strange round helms, bearing only shields. One of his hands was open and upright. The front rank of soldiers bowed to him.
The eyes of the ruler in both images were lined in gold.
“An Ataran king,” Antires said.
Hanuvar had guessed as much. Centuries ago, when Derva had still been a small city-state, the Atarans had risen to brief prominence along the shores of the Inner Sea before they were overcome both by invaders and troubles within.
“This must be the king’s tomb,” Marcan said.
“It’s a small tomb for a king,” Hanuvar pointed out. From his doorway vantage point he studied images along the rest of the wall, portraying more of the ruler’s life. It was not so uncommon to see carvings of ancient rulers surrounded by bodies of the conquered, but the sheer number of corpses, as well as crudely suggested pools of blood, were oddly unsettling. And, different from all other ancient depictions he had ever seen, the record ended with the king’s downfall. The monarch rested on his knees, surrounded by a wild-eyed mob with clubs. Three in that crowd supported barrels on their shoulders, tilted to pour grain, or sand, onto their fallen ruler. In the next image the mob lifted a head with dully glowing eyes while others beat at a blood-red thing that seemed to have dripped from the headless body. His soul, perhaps.
“The Atarans tired of kings,” Antires said. “Everyone tires of kings,” he continued after a brief pause. “But they keep finding their way to power anyway.”
Hanuvar’s view of the room’s center had been obstructed by Marcan. When the laborer stepped aside, the general spied the stone sides of a rectangular enclosure, the size of a small sarcophagus. A stone lid lay smashed to one side.
“Whatever it was they carried out in those sacks must have come from in here,” Marcan said.
Hanuvar thought that likely.
“That lid looks heavy,” Antires said. “But surely that wouldn’t have crushed uncle so flat they couldn’t recover his body.”
“No,” Hanuvar agreed.
Marcan’s lip curled. “They must have carried Plaunus out in one of those sacks. Bastards.”
They left the chamber and Marcan shut the door behind them. As he replaced the bars, Hanuvar couldn’t escape the gaze of those golden eyes, staring at him from the ancient, pitted door.
II
“I know your secret,” Drusira announced flatly.
She stood beside her brother, who stirred in the wide bed. He lay on his back, lit by a stream of morning light broken by the brown latticed window. His mouth was agape, and the white bed sheets were twisted about his waist. Without his fine tunic he looked simply a lump of sagging flesh. It was true, she thought, that good cloth made a man. Not only did his clothes obscure the extent of Aridian’s excess, they likewise hid the absurd amount of fine black hair coating most every inch of his skin except his head. Drusira’s brother was nearly bald, apart from the sides of his skull, where he grew his hair long so he could paste it across the middle. This morning both sides hung nearly to his shoulders.
She poked him with one perfectly manicured finger. “Aridian. Wake up.”
He groaned, and then a self-satisfied smile, repellant and catlike, blossomed on his wide lips. He looked to his right and let out a pleased little grunt, staring at the naked back of the lithe young woman lying at his side.
Drusira’s patience had ebbed so far that a sharp tone entered her voice. “Aridian.”
He turned toward her, his smile fading.
Drink and sleep had dulled his squarish features. If he were to lose a hundred pounds, Aridian might have been almost as handsome as their father had been. He had the long, hooked nose that looked good on the men of the line—something she was glad she herself had avoided, unlike her unfortunate cousin—and a strong chin. But two more chins wagged beneath it, and his eyes were set a little too far apart. He had always looked stouter than most of her relatives, but after their father died five years ago, Aridian’s pronounced weight gain had done nothing to improve his appearance. Twenty-five, fat, and balding, he was an unattractive prospect when so many aristocratic families had more holdings, and an upward trajectory.
And yet there he lay with the willowy beauty and wife of a senator’s son. That Aridian had long lusted after her was no great secret. Nor was the fact that she had held him in utter contempt. Until yesterday.
“It’s the eye drops, isn’t it,” Drusira said. She saw the little jar beside him on the bedside table.
Aridian frowned at her, then sat up slowly, rubbing his forehead. Probably he was suffering from a hangover. An unstoppered amphora and two cups sat near the foot of the bed, though the stink of wine seemed not to rise from them, but the sheets themselves, as if they had sweated alcohol while they slept.
“An entire courtyard’s closed down and under guard,” Drusira said. “The slaves are talking about the thing inside. And don’t try to look at me so! I won’t let you work your spell on me.”
Aridian grunted, then set wide, hairy feet on the bedroom floor. “It’s been too long since I used the drops for the spell to work,” he grumbled. He stared up at her and she fought the impulse to meet his eyes. Maybe he was right, and there was no effect, but he’d lied to her before. “Who told you?” he asked sharply. “Is that fat little maid of yours prying again?”
That he should call pretty Merfia fat when he was more pig than man irked her, but then he himself had never thought any but the most slender of women deserved his consideration.
“Leave her be. You’ve hardly been secretive. In the last three days there have been five separate women, none of whom would have looked twice at you before.” He scowled at that, but she went on. “If that wasn’t strange enough, you had the slaves performing acrobatics. All reported your weird ability to command them without speaking.”
Aridian growled. “The tongue of a wagging slave can be cut.”
“Oh hush. If you do obvious things in front of a slave, you deserve to have tales told. So all that pawing around in rotting texts finally brought you some measure of power. You can order people by looking at them, yet you only use such a gift to force women into your bed?”
“They’re the kind of women I deserve,” Aridian objected. “And I hardly force them. They come to me. Eagerly.” He looked back to the insensate woman on the bed beside him.
Surely Aridian knew he lied to himself. Drusira’s first instinct was to tell him they weren’t coming of their free will, but she suspected that would lead her nowhere. “Is this all you intend to do with this magic?”
He pulled back his upper lip to expose his front teeth and briefly imitated a rabbity nibble to mock her overbite, something he’d been doing since they were children. Drusira’s now ex-husband had quickly taken up the practice himself. “Ferreting out secrets again, are we, Drusira? Don’t worry. I have more plans. I’ll secure our fortunes soon.”
It was so typical that he thought first of comforts, and not of their ultimate fates, nor that of the loyal slaves who’d have to be auctioned off. A series of his poor investments and extravagant purchases had pushed them very close to bankruptcy. She had to put him on a better track. “Whatever magic you’ve mastered must be handled delicately, to raise our standing not just in the city, but in the province. Maybe even the empire. But you can’t make it so obvious.”
“Clever Drusira.” He pushed his hair over the bald patch and combed it with his fingers. “You’re already angling to better your station. Just like a woman.”
Once, she might already have been flustered by his mockery and jibe, but the last year with her sibling, not to mention the hate she’d endured from a husband who’d previously pledged eternal love, had steeled her. She ignored the pointless insult as she had so many others across the years. “Someone has to look after the family’s future, don’t they? Were you planning to use your sorcery on more hapless beauties at this evening’s party?”
His answer was slow in coming. “Maybe.”
He’d been acting like a greedy baby, but she smiled indulgently. “You were overdue for some kindnesses,” she said. “But from here on we should do nothing overt. Nothing that other people can observe and be alarmed by.”
“You’re right,” Aridian admitted grudgingly. “Maybe you’re due for some kindness too, sister. I can share this power. I know you want it.”
She gulped, wondering what it would be like to effortlessly command a man’s attention the way Aridian’s bedmate did. “It’s like a belladonna treatment, isn’t it? You place it in your eyes?”
“Yes,” Aridian said. “Exactly.”
“And it comes from whatever you keep in the courtyard?”
“Yes.” Aridian rose, wrapping part of the linens around his loins. His conquest mumbled but did not wake.
Aridian threw on his tunic and slipped into sandals. Already he looked better, especially with his chins raised. There was a bleary look in his eyes, but something magnetic there as well, a bit of a brown-gold glow. She was careful not to examine them too closely.
“Where did it come from?”
“Originally?” He spoke with dramatic menace. “The old Atarans claimed they summoned it from the darkest hell.” He waited a moment, then laughed. “But wizards always exaggerate. They’re braggarts.”
It hadn’t occurred to Drusira to consider the truthfulness of wizards before, and she wasn’t interested in doing so now. She just wanted an answer that troubled her less. “So it’s not from one of the seven hells?”
He shrugged heavy shoulders. “It’s not from around here, but it certainly hasn’t told me where it’s from. That’s another thing the Ataran chroniclers lied about—it doesn’t talk at all. And they also went on and on about how dangerous it was, and how it had been the ruin of Ataran’s enemies before it went for the throne itself. But you should see the thing. There’s no way it could take a throne. It can’t leave its blood bath, and even if it could, it’s hideous. No man would follow it.”
Drusira swallowed her fear. “What does it look like?”
“Come along. I’ll show you.”
Drusira followed him through the villa to the eastern courtyard. In summer the door to any of the courtyards would normally have been kept open at all times, even during rain.
But the portals were closed. And as Aridian pushed through them, his big manservant rose from where he’d been sitting in the shadow. The pale northerner towered over them both as they walked up to him.
“Is it well?” Aridian’s voice betrayed a hint of his concern.
The slave bowed and spoke in his low, accented voice. “Yes, master. It was given the blood of four freshly slaughtered dogs this morning, and it lies sleeping within. It continues to grow.”
Aridian nodded, his gaze already drifting to the ugly, high-walled rectangle of brick that had been erected to one side of the weed-choked center of the courtyard. Drusira followed as he walked past the dried-up pool, remembering when there had been fresh water and little golden fish swimming there. Something had gone wrong with the plumbing line, and repairs would have been exorbitant. So much had changed. Once, the planters that ringed the walls and the balcony above had been thick with flowers. Now those few that boasted any kind of plant growth held only rank brown volunteers.
There was no missing the reek of blood as they closed on the strange new structure. No attempt had been made to build it prettily. It looked as though someone had begun to erect a new brick oven. Flies swarmed thickly above it, and crawled along its rim.
Aridian halted a few steps beyond and laid a plump hand on the edge of his tunic. “Blood keeps it calm,” he said. “When we first found it, I thought it was dead, but after a few hours soaking in the blood, it was restored.”
“Does it eat the blood?” She knew a chill that alarmed and delighted her just a little.
“In a way. Come. I’ll show it to you.”
“I’m more interested in the drops than the thing itself—”
“It can’t harm any of us so long as we keep it supplied with blood. It’s like a drunkard. It just lies there and rolls around.”
When she joined him at the enclosure’s side the flies buzzed up, and she waved them from her face. Aridian nearly brushed the bricks with his shoulder as he peered inside. She stood on her toes to see over the rim.
She’d expected something horrifying, but the bottom of the stone enclosure presented only a pool of dark liquid and a slick crimson thing lying mostly submerged. She was looking at the creature’s shrimp-like carapace, each flange of shell overlaid upon the one before it.
She guessed the beast wasn’t much larger than a lapdog, and then it shifted and she realized it was curled in upon itself.
“It did get bigger,” Aridian said in pleasure.
“Where do the droplets come from?” Drusira asked.
“They ooze from a gland under the plate just behind its head.”
“Does it have a head?”
“It’s there. Do you see? At that end.” He raised a stick that was leaning against the side of the structure and reached inside to poke.
The creature writhed and spun in its odorous bath and then she witnessed both its incredible speed, and the grotesque tentacles twisting in front of its gaping mouth. She blanched in horror, then, as its multiple eyes turned in their stalks to observe her, she knew the brief slither of alien thoughts through her own. It was hungry. Ever so hungry, and it might never have enough blood to sate it. Then the contact broke and it rooted in the blood, and she turned away, stifling a scream.
Aridian laughed at her. “Don’t worry, sister. It doesn’t need you.”
III
Antires’ cousin Resephone had tried to wait up for them, but too many sleepless nights had caught up to her, and when Hanuvar and Antires had returned early that morning they’d found her stretched out on the couch in the receiving room. Antires had thrown a blanket over her, then he and Hanuvar had stumbled off to their beds. Marcan left for his apartment.
Now wakened, Resephone had demanded a recounting of the night’s discoveries, so they had gathered to speak in the tiny inner courtyard of her small house. Since she remained standing, Hanuvar and Antires hadn’t taken the bench she’d offered.
Even when angry, Resephone moved with grace. Though she was now a professional potter, she had been a dancer, and had the poetically lauded, if actually uncommon, build attributed to Herrenic women: high full breasts, wide hips, and a slim waist. Another woman might have flaunted such a figure, but her long stola draped her loosely from throat to calf, tight only at the waist courtesy of a simple belt. Her skin was a darker shade than her cousin Antires, more a rich ebon than his warm, reddish brown.
As Antires finished describing their expedition, Resephone’s wide nostrils flared and her head rose determinedly. “You two must come with me to the office of the town vigils, and share what you found. Your testimony, and that of Marcan, will convince them of the truth.”
At Antires’ silence she frowned. “Why do you look at me like that?”
He offered empty palms and tried to explain. “We broke the law when we went into the sewers at night and smashed open the wall. What do you think the vigils will say to that?”
“I don’t think they’ll care. You’ve exposed a crime.”
Hanuvar spoke calmly. “In my experience, rich men often own the men who enforce the laws. Are you friendly with any magistrates?”
“Do I look like a woman who has friends among the magistrates?”
Though far from the poorest of Dervans, Resephone’s small home and simple dress made her plebian social status obvious even to the casual observer. And more, she was a woman, and of foreign ancestry. Hanuvar didn’t answer her rhetorical question, saying instead: “There are few satisfying options here.”
She spoke bitterly. “So you wish me to walk away with my father unavenged? He was murdered! Probably to conceal the discovery of this . . . tomb, so Aridian wouldn’t have to share the riches he found!” She curled long fingers on her hips. “It can all be proved, down to Aridian firing the maintenance workers and having poorly trained slaves finish the repairs. But you think I should do nothing?” She jabbed a finger at Hanuvar. “Would you walk away when your blood cries for vengeance?”
Antires sucked a breath in through his teeth. “That’s not really an appropriate question,” he advised.
Her eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“My father was slain too,” Hanuvar confessed. “I avenged him by carrying on his work against his enemies.”
Resephone frowned. “And what work was that?” She paused only briefly. “You won’t tell me, will you.” She threw up her hands. “My husband has left me. My father is dead. My cousin turns up for a surprise visit, but will he aid me? No, he’s in a hurry to leave from the moment he got here, with a man he has known for—how long?” Resephone thrust a hand toward Hanuvar. “A month?” She fixed Hanuvar with her dark eyes. “Where is it you’re taking him? It’s no place good, is it?”
“It’s not likely to be.” Hanuvar nodded to Antires. “I’ve told him this.”
Resephone’s gaze swung back to her cousin, who stood hapless and uncharacteristically awkward. “You, my only relative in the provinces, will leave me, won’t you? What’s this old man’s hold on you, Antires?”
“He’s my lover.”
Resephone rolled her eyes. “If you must lie, do better than that. I thought you were an actor! You think I don’t know the look of a man in love?”
“I’m on a journey he wants to write about.” Hanuvar thought even this was saying too much. While he doubted Resephone could guess his identity, any who spoke with her at a later date might be able to trace his movements through her.
“Of course. He’s off after glory.” She frowned at Hanuvar. “What are you, some famous criminal? No, don’t say anything else. I’m tired of lies.”
Antires’ look to him was pleading.
Hanuvar searched for possible angles of attack. Reluctantly he considered the only other option. “You said the rich man sent you an invitation.”
He’d thought her eyes flared dangerously before. “Yes. His message expressed regret that ‘so beautiful a woman should suffer such tragedy,’ and he hoped I would attend the banquet in my father’s memory. He’s an infamous lecher, and I don’t want his eyes, much less his hands, on me.”
“I still can’t believe he’s celebrating a sewer repair with a banquet,” Antires said.
Hanuvar wasn’t surprised. The Dervan aristocracy strained for any opportunity to distinguish themselves with public works. He looked at his friend, then at the woman who had opened her home to them both. “I’ll help you,” he said. “Because you gave us sanctuary, and because you are blood to my friend. But I can give you only one more night. We’ll go with you to this banquet, as your entourage.”
“You think you’ll pass as a relative?” Her tone was skeptical.
“I can pass as many things,” Hanuvar assured her. “A relative by marriage. Your godfather.”
“And what do you mean to do, when you come to the banquet?”
“Find a way to learn the truth,” Hanuvar said.
“How?” she demanded.
“He always finds a way,” Antires said.
She studied them both, and her anger ebbed. “Are you going to kill Aridian?” she asked with muted curiosity.
“Would it bother you if I did?”
“I want justice. But I want to know what really happened to my father, and why.”
“You’ll know,” Hanuvar said.
IV
Drusira had been on hand to greet all the guests that evening as they were ushered into the atrium, from the old magistrate and the young city treasurer to the parade of bored middle-aged patricians. The slaves had hung the most expensive tapestries, and colored paper lanterns dangled over the main courtyard. Dancers and jugglers from far lands entertained the crowd while pretty slave girls kept the libations pouring freely. Every last spare coin had been employed for this night, to suggest that wealth and abundance were commonplace. A sacrifice, she hoped, to bring greater fortune.
She stood listening on the edge of the dining hall while musicians played a skirling melody and guests clapped along amid bursts of laughter. Merfia begged her pardon and told her more guests had arrived. Drusira left to meet them.
Even if she hadn’t already known which guests were the ones she herself had added to the list this morning, it would have been easy to guess, for most of her brother’s involved a pretty woman, either on the arm of an elderly man, or accompanying a matron and her husband. The lovely Herrene who had just been ushered through the portico was certainly her brother’s guest. Her dress was simple, but her fine dark skin, cascade of braided curling hair, and statuesque figure needed little adornment.
With her were two men. One was a young Herrene, lighter in skin though still dark, handsome and somehow sly. And there was an older man in a plain, trim white tunic, clean shaven and powerful, no matter his graying hair. His gaze was direct and bold. Drusira found something harsh, dangerous, and strangely engaging about him.
“Welcome,” she said. “I am Drusira Melva. It’s a pleasure to have you in our humble abode.”
The woman bowed her head as to a better, though as a guest she should not have done so. “Thank you for inviting us,” she said. “I am Resephone, and this is my cousin, Antires.”
The male Herrene must have been more used to polite society, for he took her hand, kissing her fingertips.
“And how do you know Aridian?” Drusira asked.
The woman’s full lips turned down in a frown, and she opened her mouth to speak. Before she could do so, Antires answered.
“Regrettably,” he said, “my uncle, Resephone’s father, perished at a work site sponsored by your family. He was the manager of the repairs. We’re here in his stead.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” Rather than prolonging the awkward moment, Drusira shifted her attention to the second man. “And who is this?”
“A family friend,” Resephone said.
The older man stepped forward, an appreciative smile playing at his lips as he took her hand formally and kissed it. “This is more of a pleasure than I expected,” he said. “I am Martial, godfather to Resephone. I came for her father’s funeral. I must say, my lady, that your eyes are among the loveliest I’ve seen.”
She was certain this compliment came in part because of the eye drops she’d applied. But as her eyes shifted to the stunning Resephone, her hand went to the necklace of pearls about her throat. She saw his gaze rest there.
In a way, his attention was as strangely exciting as that fear she’d felt when she’d approached her brother’s monster. “How nice to meet you,” she said. “Come. Tell me of yourself.” She offered her arm, and he took it, and she led him away from the lovelier woman, though she spoke back to both. “Enjoy yourselves! I’ll bring him back presently.”
She hadn’t really tried her power yet. But as they stepped from the atrium and diverted through the study into a side hall, she gave into temptation, flashing her eyes and putting her will into her voice, as Aridian had instructed her. “Tell me, Martial. Do you think me beautiful?”
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation, and then frowned a little, as if confused.
She was surprised herself. She thought she had used her power upon him, and compelled him to speak the truth. She tried again. “You really think I’m beautiful? What of my teeth? Don’t they mar my appearance?”
Little light reached the inner hall that evening, but his eyes seemed to have no trouble meeting hers.
“They make you distinctive,” he said, and again looked puzzled. Perhaps he wasn’t used to speaking so forthrightly.
She couldn’t believe it. Here she was just wanting to play with her newfound magics a bit and command him, yet he already liked her! She laughed and patted his arm. “Come. We’ve a lovely collection of ancient swords. Perhaps you’d like to see them. The music’s already begun to grate upon me.”
“I would follow you anywhere, my lady.”
“You carry yourself like a soldier,” she said. “Surely you’re some officer.”
She thought to hear him admit he was simply a seasoned veteran, of no higher rank than optio.
“I am nothing, now,” he said. “But once I was an officer.”
She turned and looked up into his eyes. “What rank?”
“A general,” he answered, then stared at her curiously.
“What happened? Why aren’t you a general now?”
He looked reluctant to answer, but she could feel the magics compelling the truth from him. “I lost my army,” he admitted.
“Gods.” She patted his arm and led him further into the hall, past her brother’s suite. She wasn’t looking at him as she asked the next question. “And they stripped you of your rank?”
“You’re a very compelling woman,” Martial said, and something in his tone warned her he was on his guard.
Aridian had told her the secret was to talk about things that made your quarry comfortable. Things that they would want. If you discussed objects or people they might have dreamt of, you could more easily weave a spell.
She opened the door that led to her own suite and guided him to the sitting room, a wide chamber decorated with three couches centered about a table. A few candles guttered along her makeup desk. It would have been more proper to attend to her appearance in her bedroom, but the windows in the sitting room allowed ever so much more light.
“We can look at swords later,” she said. She took his hands and tugged him toward the center couch, and he easily acquiesced and sat beside her. She felt his calluses as she looked deeply into his eyes. They were a stormy gray. “Tell me what it is you most desire.”
“My daughter,” he said.
She was struck with horror. She’d thought she had the attention of a handsome man of real character. But her power to coerce the truth had revealed that he, too, was twisted. Then she perceived the pain in his expression and wondered if she misunderstood. “Why do you want your daughter?”
“Because I fear for her,” he said. “I can’t find her. She’s probably dead.”
She put her hands to his face. He struggled to look away, then relaxed, at last.
“Oh, poor Martial. Who would have known I would find such a gentle soul in a soldier. Here. Look at me. I want to tell you of wonderful things. Tell me that you will listen.”
“I will listen.”
“Tell me that you will believe everything you hear.”
“I will believe everything I hear.”
She smiled and kissed him, but his return kiss was as passionless as his words. Aridian hadn’t warned her about that. Well, she knew how to set things right. She would conjure him a vision that any soldier would wish.
“It is a beautiful day. The crowds have gathered along the Avenine Way for miles, and they watch as your chariot is pulled forward by six black stallions. Can you see them?”
“Yes.”
“Do you hear the crowds? They chant your name. Again and again they call to you, for you have won a great victory for the empire.”
His face twisted as though he’d been riven with pain. Drusira could only assume it was because he’d never thought he would be rewarded for his service. “Shh,” she said, a hand to his cheek. “All is well. The people of Derva are grateful to you. Do you understand? They’re grateful. Look. There’s the triumphal arch, and your chariot passes beneath it. Behind you march thousands of prisoners, and tribute you won from your victories. Waiting up there on the dais, on the very temple to Divine Jovren, is the emperor himself! Do you see him? He calls your name, and bids you kneel before him as he lays a wreath upon your brow. You are a champion of the Dervan people!”
She thought, as she discussed more and more glories, that his pain would ease. But he bared his teeth and now his mouth opened in a silent scream. Finally, eyes closed, he gripped her upper arms and shook her.
“You’re hurting me!” she cried.
His voice was a hoarse whisper. “Cease your magics!”
“Let go of me,” she said, even though she felt a thrill to be clutched so tightly.
His head bowed, and he trembled, and she realized suddenly that he was racked with grief, though he made no sound.
A moment ago she’d known fright. Now she knew only compassion, leavened with guilt, for she had brought this upon him when she’d only meant to give him pleasure. She embraced him and dragged his head to her shoulder. She rocked him, patting his back and shushing him, as she had once done with her little niece when she’d scraped her knee. She had seen one of her slaves doing this with her child, and wondered, if her own son had lived, if she might have gentled him like this.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He held her, tightly, as though he drowned. As though he hadn’t held to anyone in a long, long while. As though his strength had ebbed and he had to borrow some of hers.
She stroked his hair the while, wondering how she had come to this place.
After a short time, his breath eased, and she heard his voice in her ear. “The world has puzzles for me yet. There is kindness in you, lady, even in your cruelties.” He spoke on. “More fool I, who should know better than to judge the merits of a person by preconceptions.”
“You’re a strange man, Martial. But I am sorry.”
He pulled away from her shoulder and without looking into her eyes, pressed lips to her forehead and kissed her. “I know. And I’m sorry too. Tell me how you came by the power you used on me.”
“Oh, I can’t.”
“How long have you possessed it?”
“This was the first time I tried to use it,” she said. “And I bungled it somehow. I thought if my brother could use it, it must be simple.”
“How long has your brother had it?”
“Only a few days.” She sighed. “He’s seduced so many women.”
“You needed no magic to seduce me.”
Her heart fluttered like a bird. “I wasn’t going to do that. I just wanted to see what it was like to know for sure if someone liked me.”
“He acquired the magic from the sewers, didn’t he? In the old tomb?”
That was strange. “How did you . . . how do you know about that?”
“Resephone’s father was the foreman in charge of the repairs, and he died there. Your brother’s servants said it was an accident. But there was no body. And you know how Herrenes are about funerals. They think the soul will wander the earth unless they can give him proper rites.”
She tried to search his eyes, and then looked away, realizing she might unintentionally throw a spell on him again. And then another thought came to her, and her mouth opened.
“What?” he said.
She shook her head. “Oh no.”
“What?”
Aridian had told her how he’d taken pains to make sure no one could pass on what had really been found, that only slaves had seen the place. That he had replaced all the workers.
But suppose that he’d lied? Suppose the foreman had seen something? “I think . . . I think maybe we should talk to my brother.”
It was then they heard the tramp of feet down a distant corridor, and Drusira recalled there had been no music for the last few moments, apart from the steady beat of two drums, struck in unison like a mighty heart.
“That’s strange,” she said. “It sounds like the party’s moving to the rear of the villa.” And her brother wouldn’t permit that, for that was the most deteriorated part of the building. As well as the creature’s hiding place.
“They sound like an army on the march,” Martial said grimly.
An idea struck her. She understood that if she were to join the others she would experience such joys as she had never dreamed. She shook her head, wondering where such a notion had come from, but she could not dismiss it, and she quickly wondered why she would wish to do so.
V
The woman went rigid in Hanuvar’s arms. He would have searched her face for signs of illness, but dared not risk meeting her eyes, for he still reeled from the powerful effect of her suggestions.
“We must go,” she declared. Her voice lacked inflection of any kind, but delivered the full-throated power of her sorcery. It rattled through him; only the well of resistance he’d found when she suggested nightmares as great victories kept him safe, and even still he dared not meet her eyes.
“Fight it,” he told her, and gripped her tightly.
“Come with me,” she said, her head lolling. “Great things await.” She struggled in his arms.
Sorcery had hold of her, and he could not break it. He rose with her; then, before whatever possessed her seemed certain of his actions, he guided her to a wardrobe. She turned to struggle only as he pushed her inside. He barred the door.
The sound of the drumbeat receded, but he heard it still, like the throb of some monster heart deep within the villa. Leaving her chamber, he found the swords Drusira had mentioned hanging on a central wall and quickly selected the finest. It might be that Antires and Resephone were unharmed by whatever enchantments were in play, but he did not mean to investigate without cold steel.
He’d have given a lot to hold a spear and shield as well.
It would be folly to advance boldly into unknown terrain against an unknown number of enemies. Had he an army, he would have deployed scouts; since he didn’t, he stayed to the shadows as he prowled into the deeper recesses of the villa. He found the crowd formed about a central courtyard, tightly packed and swaying in unison.
He had no wish to confront those numbers directly.
He sought and found a servant’s stair and threaded through the second-floor chambers until he looked down on the rectangular courtyard from a dark loggia with wide stone rails. For a brief moment he thought he’d spotted enemies in the darkness. Shoulder-high statues of dryads were placed every six paces, alternating between large urns filled with dead plants and bare dirt.
Torches flared in cressets set against pillars supporting the balcony. The partygoers, entertainers, and slaves, some sixty in all, formed a living wall around a central weedy pit in the center of the crumbling courtyard, and their bodies moved in time to the beat of two muscular drummers standing to one side. A small line of men and women queued up before a lidless rectangular structure, from which an object leaned.
Even seen while half obscured by shadow he felt something obviously, innately wrong with that object, and a chill coursed through Hanuvar as the thing shifted under its own power. He understood then that he looked upon a living creature. It had a glistening red carapace. Four long, waving tendrils projected from its head, and he was trying to decide whether they were arms or antennae when one of them slashed out at the obese man who was first in line.
Blood gushed from the man’s stomach wound, and he cried out. “Please,” he pleaded weakly. “I found you! I helped you!” Despite his protestations, he did not retreat. Instead, he drew closer still. “I’m not like the others!” the big man wailed. “I’m special!”
The creature drove all four of those projections into his body, and the man groaned as blood welled up and dripped down him to the tiles, but he did not withdraw, and he did not fall.
Though decades of warfare had inured him to all manner of injury, this grisly end repulsed Hanuvar. Searching for Resephone and Antires among the blank-eyed watchers, he discovered his friend was third in line, and his cousin stood directly behind him, smiling with anticipation, as though welcoming a gruesome death.
The man’s body hit the old stones with a moist plop and the beast’s four blood-slick tendrils commenced their waving. At the same time, a shrill voice rang within Hanuvar’s head. “Look at me!”
Hanuvar turned his back to it and stepped into the shadows.
Despite facing away, he felt the might of that gaze.
The voice rose from within him. Cloying. Powerful. Strangely disjointed, as though it struggled to convey its dark feelings into words he would understand. “I felt you the moment you entered this structure. These others I shall feed upon. But I have another use for you!”
“Why me?” Hanuvar asked. He only half listened for the answer, racking his mind for the means to slay the monster. His first thought was fire, but the beast was surrounded by moisture as well as innocents who would be hurt by flame. And then there was the fact that the ancients had apparently closed the thing away rather than chopping it into tiny pieces. That led him to suspect it couldn’t be killed by normal means.
The thing continued. “You are a hunter, a king, a killer, a force among these little entities. With you as my vessel, I will be ever so much greater.”
Hanuvar heard noises below and peered from his hiding place. Two figures climbed an old trellis toward the balcony. He stepped toward them. “What are you?” he called.
The thing’s plaintive cry echoed in his head. “Pity me, for I did not come to this land of my own will. I was summoned long ago to serve your kind. Now I am trapped, and struggle to survive.”
Hanuvar had long found it strange those with great power so often thought themselves beset upon. “You’re a victim, then.”
“Yes. But not so helpless as the fool who found me thought. He believed he subdued me with blood. He but strengthened me so my powers could be restored!”
The first climber reached the gallery. Hanuvar drove his sword pommel into the man’s knuckles. The climber released his hold, falling into the fellow below so that both crashed to the courtyard pavers. Others already scrambled to follow. Worse, he heard footfalls in the corridor. Figures were lumbering toward him. Hanuvar faced them, hand tightening on his sword hilt. And then, at sight of his assailants, he scowled and lowered the weapon.
One was a plump, older woman. With her came Resephone, her beauty dulled by her blank-eyed stare and her tottering gait, so different from her easy grace. They advanced with hands outstretched. Their jaws were slack. He felt an echo of the creature’s power in their eyes, and so slitted his own. He turned, rather than raise arms against ensorcelled women, and almost walked into disaster.
A huge man dressed like a household slave had crept up from behind. Hanuvar raised a hand too late to block the incoming punch. His sidestep saved him from full impact, but even a partial blow from that great fist staggered him. He blinked stars out of his vision as the matron behind grasped his arm. Resephone gouged talonlike fingernails into his calf.
Hanuvar twisted away, swatting the older woman in the head with the flat of his blade. Resephone wrenched his ankle and he stumbled, catching sight of the large man lurching after.
He’d broken free, but his ankle pained and he didn’t think he should put his full weight on it. He limped as he hurried along the railing, all his instincts urging him to flee. He could make his way down by the servant’s stair, or even drop from a front window.
But that would mean abandoning his friends, and all these others. He rushed past a trellis, shaking under the weight of three new climbers. The thing called for him to look as he halted beside one of those large pots he’d spotted earlier. The big man followed only a few steps to his rear.
He grasped the urn under its swollen lip, and then, his ankle smarting, he hefted it a foot above the railing. It was lighter than he’d feared, owing to the desiccated soil within, but still a strain. He dared not look down, for fear that he would meet the monster’s stare, yet he had to verify the angle of attack. That’s when he saw the multifaceted eyes in that terrible face, with its clacking parrot’s beak and writhing cilia, glistening with blood. He felt icy tendrils of foreign will reaching out from the foothold it already had within him—
He released the urn.
The creature must have sensed its fate, for its efforts to reach Hanuvar ceased even as the planter dropped toward it. There was a crash of clay on stone, followed almost immediately by the stench of blood.
The big man caught one of Hanuvar’s arms and spun him around. He turned on his bad leg and would have driven a hand at the man’s throat, but his opponent tucked in his chin.
The brawler cocked back a fist. Hanuvar flexed hands, conscious of the footfalls to his rear.
Then the big man stared, dumbfounded, and shook his head.
Hanuvar pried the man’s fingers from his shirt. “Are you free of it?”
He seemed to be, but Hanuvar didn’t waste more time watching his attacker. He turned to find the two women at his rear blinking stupidly. He wheeled to the railing, and was struggling to lift a larger planter when he felt the big man at his side. “This will hurt it?” the slave asked in a thick Ermanian accent.
“Cover the thing in dirt or sand,” Hanuvar ordered. He hoped he had the truth of it, based solely on images glimpsed on that ancient subterranean wall.
Resephone appeared at his shoulder, her face stricken and confused. Nonetheless, as Hanuvar and the muscular slave bent to lift the larger pot, she grasped it with them and helped carry it to the edge. After they dropped it over side, Hanuvar looked down, noting that the second planter had not only cracked open the creature’s brick container but that the dirt was soaking up the blood. The creature squirmed in the foul mud, stretching tendrils toward a stream of red muck.
The crowd backed away, muttering among themselves. Someone behind a nearby pillar sobbed uncontrollably. Hanuvar waved to Antires, but the actor didn’t see him.
Hanuvar’s new ally needed no urging, and the big man stepped to the nearest planter, his mouth twisted in hate. He lifted it on his own, and the third vessel exploded right upon the reaching tendrils, hurling bits of pottery and dirt in every direction. Hanuvar watched to see if the weight and velocity did anything whatsoever to the being itself, for a human would have been pulped by the three attacks.
“Is it dead?” Resephone asked, breathless.
“No.” Whatever strange realm the creature had been conjured from birthed entities that lived by different rules. Despite a solid hit, the monster’s carapace looked unbroken, and its tendrils still quivered, lusting desperately for someone’s lifeblood. But it had shrunken in upon itself, diminishing by at least a quarter.
He hadn’t forgotten the rest of the instructive pictograms upon that ancient mural. Even as his huge ally sent another planter plummeting over side Hanuvar pointed to the one beside it. “That next. I’m going downstairs to finish it.” He spoke to Resephone. “Stay up here where it’s safe.”
“I’m coming with you!”
He didn’t have time to argue. Hanuvar ran limping for the stairs. He stopped only to break the leg off an ornate side table, carrying it with him like a club.
By the time he had reached the courtyard, the mob of guests was in full stampede. No longer confused or subdued, but terrified, some cried out in anguish as they ran.
Hanuvar knew their departure meant troops would shortly be dispatched, and he had no inclination to be questioned by them.
Antires waited to one side of the courtyard doorway. Even in the gloom Hanuvar saw his friend’s wide smile of relief. “Praise the Gods. You’re both unharmed!”
“What about you?” Resephone asked, throwing her arms around her cousin.
“I’m fine.” Antires clasped her close.
They celebrated too soon. “Find a crate or chest large enough to hold it,” Hanuvar said. “And blankets. Hurry!” He started past them.
“What are you going to do?” Resephone asked.
He answered without looking back. “Break it.”
He found the being surrounded by shattered pottery and scattered dirt. Its feelers and tentacles scrabbled at the pale body of the big man. His empty eyes glistened in the torchlight.
Hanuvar snatched up a discarded cloak, tossed it over the creature, and advanced with his wooden club. He brought it down on the beast’s back, striking again and again. Each impact resulted in a satisfying crunch, and the diminishment of the writhing body beneath the blood-drenched cloth.
It spun beneath the blanket, scrabbling against the stone floor on dozens of segmented legs, and Hanuvar closed his eyes to its burning gaze he couldn’t see, even as it stretched for his mind while those tendrils sought his flesh.
“You fool!” it cried. “You could unite with me, and I could grant you whatever you wish!”
“What I wish,” he said, “you cannot grant me.” He brought the cudgel across the squirming tentacles and it squealed in agony. He rained down blows upon it and ignored its rasping pleas for mercy.
What seemed an eternity later, Antires and Resephone arrived with a storage chest. Antires then pulled a thick wool blanket from it and tossed it across the writhing monster, now shriveled under the cloak to the size of a piglet. It squirmed feebly as Hanuvar lifted it in the fabric, and he felt the questing thrust of one of its terrible feelers against the cloth.
He threw it into the chest and slammed the lid closed. Only then did he scan their surroundings. The three of them were alone in the courtyard. Of the big slave who’d aided him, he saw no sign.
Resephone’s eyes were huge. “What was that monster?”
“Something that doesn’t belong here,” Hanuvar answered. Antires passed over a second blanket and Hanuvar used it to wipe gore from his limbs. “How are you two?”
“Well enough, I think,” Antires answered. “Once Aridian stood up and spoke to us all I could feel that thing in my mind, and it wouldn’t—”
Hanuvar cut him off. “But you’re fine now? We’ll talk later. Go. I’ll catch up to you. Ready our things. We’re leaving tonight.”
The creature thudded feebly against the side of the wooden chest and Hanuvar suppressed a grimace.
Weeks ago, Antires had stopped asking for details when Hanuvar gave orders, but Resephone didn’t yet know that when he urged haste, it was necessary. She paused even as Antires moved off.
“Who are you, really?” she asked.
“I’m your cousin’s friend.”
Antires beckoned to her.
“That’s not an answer,” she said.
“It’s the only one that counts.” Hanuvar’s eyes fell to the blood-soaked, mutilated corpse of Aridian. “Your father’s avenged now. I’ll find someone who can tell you where his body’s buried. Now go. I’ll meet you at your home.”
He followed them out of the courtyard, but turned down a different hall.
When Hanuvar opened the wardrobe door Drusira was seated on its floor. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the influx of lantern light. “What happened?” she asked. “I heard screaming.”
“The magic had you in its thrall.” Hanuvar set down the lantern and helped her to her feet. “How are you now?”
“I’m fine. But what’s happened?”
“The monster’s captured, but I don’t think it’s dead. I’m not sure it can really be killed.”
“Where’s my brother?”
There was no easy way to blunt the information, so he didn’t. “He was one of its victims.”
She nodded quietly. “Because I had some of the monster’s power, it tried to use me. But you saved me.” Was that a hint of the creature’s power still, in her gaze? Or was it Drusira’s own?
He squeezed her hand and released it. “Now you have to save yourself, and your people. I’ve placed it in a chest. It must be hidden away, in the dark. Make no record of where it’s kept, but leave pictograms to tell it must be kept from blood, and that its eyes are dangerous. Do you understand? Not writing, pictures, so that anyone who finds it can know. Make certain it’s clear it can only be weakened by having the blood beaten out of it and soaked away with sand or dirt.”
“Yes.”
“Let it dry up and perhaps, someday, it will be nothing but dust.”
“You can’t see to it?”
“No. And you must ask your brother’s slaves where Resephone’s father was buried, so she can give him proper funeral rites.”
“I will.” She clutched at his hand. “But won’t you stay?” She added with childlike vulnerability: “I need your strength.”
He bent to kiss her. “There are things that I must do. Find your own strength, and look to no man to confirm your beauty.”
As he released her he spotted a little stoppered pot on the side of her dressing table. Was he imagining its mystical pull? He lifted it. “Is this the creature’s magic secretion?”
“Yes.”
He weighed the stopper in his hand as he metaphorically weighed the possibility presented him. How much simpler the challenges before him would be if he could command men’s unswerving obedience. No gates would be barred. All his people could be found and freed with but a few simple commands. Surely the creature could not affect him if it was locked far away, could it?
He hurled the jar to the floor tiles, where it smashed into tiny pieces. The shining liquid spread among its shattered fragments and dribbled away. He lifted a hand in farewell to Drusira, then limped out from the villa and into the night.
Once, one of my nephews asked if I thought I better understood how a slave must feel, to have surrendered my will to that malevolent blood thing. He was young. What slave marches joyfully forward at his master’s every whim, even unto death? Resephone and I knew what we did, and we thrilled to it. Once it decided to expend its power, it leapt from one to the other of us in that small space, where we stood talking nose to nose and eye to eye, until we all were extensions of its will and thought ourselves happy to be so. The ease with which that being worked its power still brings me chills.
Resephone pleaded with us to stay the night after we returned to her home, feeling a natural indebtedness to us and a responsibility besides, since Hanuvar had been injured by her. We did not. Certain that authorities would be alerted, Hanuvar wished to be on his way, even though it meant travel through the darkness. We left her, then, and long years were to pass before I spoke with her once more.
Though she knew Hanuvar was no ordinary man, she did not then guess his identity. Over the coming months, when rumors spread that Hanuvar lived and had even passed through the provinces, she scoffed like any rational person who hears talk of conspiracies and rumors, though they be daily fare for so many. And then, one evening when she was washing her plate after dinner, she fell to wondering about me and my mysterious friend and she froze with the wet rag halfway to the plate. She managed not to drop it.
“It had not occurred to me that Hanuvar, the monster, might fight other monsters,” she said when she told me of that moment.
Naturally I told her that he was not a monster, but she had so much sympathy for all those who had perished in the Second Volani War—known by some, her among them, as the Hanuvaran War—that she was unable to see him in a different light. Even when I pointed out that he had been fighting, like the Herrenic city-states in Utria, to break the Dervan yoke, she could only say that there should have been a kinder way.
I think there might have been, but only if the gods made a kinder world.
That conversation transpired more than a decade after our adventure with Resephone. In the days immediately following our encounter with the monster, it seemed to me Hanuvar had grown a little more relaxed in my presence. One evening, as we were brushing down the horses, he asked a question I sensed he’d long been wondering. “What brought you to the fringes of the Dervan Empire?”
I answered readily enough. “My family were refugees from Arbos. My great uncle upset the city’s tyrant with a few, shall we say, injudicious poems, and the whole family had to run for it. We ended up in southern Tyvol, and we spread out from there.”
He paused in his brushing and looked up from his horse’s chest. “But you, specifically?”
It pleased me that he was curious, but the real reason I remember smiling at that was because I was amused by my youthful wanderlust. “I wanted to go wandering and see the sights. A young man’s fancy and all that. And I was smitten with another actor. I thought I’d follow him to the ends of the world. I did, but he turned out to be in love with his reflection. He left the troupe halfway along when some patrician fell over himself for him. Me, I kept going.”
“And how did you like the world’s end?” Hanuvar asked.
“It turned out there was more world to see. But I was low on funds, tired of bad food, and bored with the stuffy plays the troupe was putting on.”
“So you left, and set up shop for yourself.”
“Where I was making ends meet, barely, until a madman turned up riding the other direction.”
He chuckled. Bit by bit I was to grow accustomed to that sound, and discover that it was not so rare as you might suppose. At least when Hanuvar was among friends.
—Sosilos, Book Three