Heggenauer swallowed a bite of food and shook his head.
“They were not demons,” he said. “Those were devils.”
Tilda and the others looked at him. The party had found another barracks or armory near enough in its lay-out to the one in which they had spent their first night in Vod’Adia that the place seemed almost homey. This one had been as thoroughly looted as had the first, though many of the other buildings in the neighborhood they now found themselves in showed no sign of having yet been disturbed at earlier Openings. Amatesu had again warmed a decent meal over a small fire in the courtyard, and the party had settled around their packs and bedrolls in a second floor gallery to eat, sitting in a circle with a lantern in the middle. Uriako Shikashe ate while standing, free from most of his elaborate armor but with his two swords still at his waist. He watched the dark street outside through arrow slits.
“There is a difference?” John Deskata asked. His voice was irritated and he had a bandage around his right hand, for the back of it had been scraped bloody on the wiry beard of a devil during the fight. Neither Amatesu nor Heggenauer’s magic had fully healed the stinging wound.
Heggenauer nodded, and gave a grim frown. “Under the Code, the priests of List have the responsibility to deal with such malevolent beings. But from the little I know, demons are monstrous beasts, twisted and evil but not particularly intelligent. Devils however are in their way even more dangerous. They are cunning, even calculating, and in a strange way, almost civilized.”
“Civilized?” Tilda asked.
“That may not be quite the right word, but I mean that they have a sort of society. Ranks and titles. Perhaps even a nobility, of a diabolic sort.”
“That fellow Balan called himself a Lord.” Zeb said, and from across the room, Nesha-tari hissed at him.
The Zantish woman, obviously a mage of some type as that was the only sort of person Tilda was aware of who had the ability to chuck lightning bolts about, still kept her own space apart from the rest of the party. While the others sat around the lantern light, Nesha-tari was against a wall and mostly in shadow, reclining on her side atop her bedroll with her head propped up on an elbow, the other arm draped lazily over the swell of her hip. The flickering light reflecting off her blue eyes showed that she was watching the others, but until she hissed at Zeb Tilda had not thought she was actually listening to the conversation, as it was in Codian.
Nesha-tari held out an arm and beckoned to Zeb with one languid finger. Tilda did not much care for the gesture, but Zeb got to his feet and walked over to the woman. Nesha-tari looked up at him from the floor and spoke in a tone one would use with a child, condescending perhaps, but with a firmness that seemed almost fond. Tilda was a little surprised at herself, for that bothered her as well.
“Madame Nesha-tari says none of us should speak that name again,” Zeb said. The woman added something else, and Zeb looked back at the others with a frown. “She says that whenever the name of a devil is spoken aloud, it may draw the fiend’s attention.”
Heggenauer caught Tilda’s eyes across the lantern. Over the last two days there had been little opportunity for Tilda to say much to the Jobian, though she had told him that Zebulon, Amatesu, and even the grim samurai Uriako Shikashe did not seem to her to be bad people. If she was coming to share the young priest’s assessment that there was something dangerous about Nesha-tari, Tilda had not said as much to Heggenauer for she really had no good reason for it.
“Zebulon,” Heggenauer turned to him. Zeb clicked his heavy boot heels together.
“If Madame Nesha-tari is so well versed in the mannerisms of nether-worldly beasts, perhaps she would share some of her knowledge with the rest of us. So that we might protect ourselves.”
Zeb spoke in Zantish, though Nesha-tari did not look up at him. Her eyes were on Heggenauer and her teeth shone very white as she smiled. She spoke in a tone that could not be read as anything other than haughty, though Zeb smoothed it off before translating.
“She says we should be careful not to be killed by demons or devils, for those souls that fall to them within Vod’Adia…become their property.”
Tilda blanched, but Heggenauer only narrowed his eyes at the Zantish woman.
“She seems to know much of this place, as well.”
Zeb spoke and Nesha-tari laughed. She swung easily to a seat, elbows on her knees in front of her and a sneer on her face. She spoke at Heggenauer, almost spat words at him, oozing superiority with every smirk and dismissive wave of a hand.
Zeb frowned and when she was through he cleared his throat and said only, “She knows a lot of things.”
Heggenauer climbed to his feet with his arms loose. He was unarmored now, but even in cloth leggings and a soft-blue Jobian tunic, the blonde Exlander still looked like a storybook knight with his square chin and powerful build. Still seated, Amatesu looked up at him with her fine eyebrows raised, and Shikashe turned to regard the priest from the window.
“There are a few things I know as well. About Ayzantium,” Heggenauer said. “I know the old Dragon Lands are now governed by a tri-part cabal, of Ayonites, Royalists, and the Cultists of the dead Red Wyrm.” He looked intently at Nesha-tari. “She is surely no follower of Ayon.”
“Surely not,” Zeb said without asking her.
“Does she claim to serve the Ayzantine crown?”
Zeb looked down, though Nesha-tari was still smirking at Heggenauer. He asked the question in Zantish and she laughed before she answered, if anything with even more disdain dripping from her words. Zeb made another long statement very short.
“She’s no admirer of the King,” he said.
Heggenauer looked at Nesha-tari levelly. “Then she is a servant of Red Ged-azi.”
Nesha-tari’s eyes widened, and her nostrils flared. She bolted to her feet and jabbed a finger in the air at Heggenauer, speaking furiously. Zeb translated rapidly as she did so, with no editing on his part.
“One such as you, pale godling, shall not speak the name of a Great Dragon of the Sky. Not even one who has been slain.”
Heggenauer had taken a step back when Nesha-tari rose, closer to his mace and shield resting against a wall. Tilda had sprung to her feet as well, as had Amatesu. John Deskata alone remained seated on the floor, and he was the only one in the room who did not seem to be alarmed by the palpable acrimony that suddenly existed between the priest of Jobe and Nesha-tari. He did however sigh and slide himself backwards against a wall, out of anyone’s line of fire.
“She admits it then?” Heggenauer demanded. Zeb spoke to Nesha-tari though it sounded like he was trying to calm her down more than ask another question. She kept glaring at Heggenauer with her hands balled into fists at her sides. The Far Westerners now stood together looking from the Exlander to the Zant woman, close enough to step in between them. Tilda was uncertain what she should do, but after feeling her hair stand out on end when Nesha-tari had unleashed a lightning bolt past her to smite a bearded devil, she did not think anything that might lead to the woman hurling another one in the close quarters of this room was a good idea. She moved toward Heggenauer with her hands held up, palms out before her.
“Brother, please. What does it matter who Nesha-tari serves, so long as we are all on the same side in this place?”
“That is just the issue,” Heggenauer said. “The Ayzantine Cult is the legacy of those Zants who were in thrall to the Great Red Dragon when he ruled over their lands. They are warlocks and witches, and no less evil than are the priests of the Burning Man.”
“What is a Great Dragon?” Tilda asked, and Heggenauer looked at her askance. Tilda knew something of them, of course, for it was impossible to learn much about Noroth without encountering the fabled creatures that had been central to much of the continent’s history. But keeping Heggenauer talking rather than having him go on glaring at Nesha-tari seemed the best tack for Tilda to sail. It sounded like Zeb was trying the same thing in reverse across the room.
“The Greats?” Heggenauer said. “They were the original ten dragons to inhabit Noroth, the oldest and most powerful of their species. Sires and mothers of all the rest. The five of the Land are colored as precious metals, and though they remain aloof from Man they are generally benevolent creatures.”
“There were fifteen Great Dragons, in the beginning.” Amatesu said, also having moved inconspicuously up on Heggenauer’s side, so that the acolyte had to turn farther away from Nesha-tari to meet the shukenja’s eyes as she spoke.
“Long ago when the Dragons of the Sky made war with those of the Land, the five Great Dragons of the Waters came to the Farthest West.”
Heggenauer blinked at her. “I have never heard that before.”
“It is so. The Five Dragons of the Waters still dwell in the West, though some of those who remained on Noroth have since been slain, or disappeared.”
“Like the Red one,” Tilda prompted, and Heggenauer gave a short nod.
“The five Dragons of Sky, three of which still live, are malevolent and evil creatures. At times they have raised conquering armies of Magdetchoi, or even enslaved human tribes and nations. The greatest of their number was the Red, and he ruled the lands that are now Ayzantium for centuries before he was slain. Even now his Cult lives on among the Zants.” Heggenauer looked Tilda evenly in the eyes. “They are a part of the Ayzantine government, and if the Red Priests wished to capture the Duchess Claudja of Chengdea to forward their war against Daul, then the Cult would wish the same.”
Tilda looked across the room just in time to see Nesha-tari give Zeb a shove to the chest. He backed away with his hands held out at his sides, still speaking rapidly in Zantish in a tone so diffident it was nearly spineless. It seemed to work however, as Nesha-tari put her hands on her hips and snapped a few last words at him. He nodded and bowed, then spoke to the room.
“Madame Nesha-tari is not in the service of the Cult of Ged…”
Nesha-tari growled.
“…of the Great Red Dragon. She does not care a whit for the war with Daul, nor for the bickering human nation of Ayzantium.”
“Let her say then who her master is!” Heggenauer shouted, and Nesha-tari drew herself up with her sapphire eyes blazing. She shouted back, words sounding like a proclamation, but the only two that Tilda recognized were Dragon, and the name Akroya.
Now Heggenauer came close to growling. “The Great Blue Dragon. The foulest of the damned Sky Dragons left alive. May they all suffer the fate of Ged-azi and the Winter Wyrm.”
Nesha-tari may not have understood the Jobian, but she had heard him repeat the name Ged-azi, after clearly telling him not to do so. Her face reddened even through her tan skin, and she spat out words with such ferocity that no translation was required to know they were curses that would have peeled the paint off the walls, had their been any.
Heggenauer reddened even more and he snatched up his mace from the floor. Tilda took a long step backward without thinking about it, but Shikashe moved in front of the priest, held up a warding hand in front of his face, and spoke in Ashinese. Amatesu quickly translated.
“Brother Heggenauer, you are a good man, and his lordship Uriako Shikashe-sama has no wish to fight you. But he will not permit you to menace the Madame Nesha-tari, as she is under his protection. Please, Brother. Stand at peace.”
Heggenauer looked between the two Far Westerners. “How can you people be in this woman’s service? How much gold does it take to buy your honor?”
Shikashe shoved Heggenauer hard in the chest, but the priest from Exland was as stoutly built as the samurai and a good deal taller. He grabbed Shikashe’s wrist with his left hand, still holding his mace at his side, and the two butted together like bulls. Amatesu sprang forward and tried to worm between them, shouting please and stop in Codian and probably in Ashinese as well. Tilda felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Blue sparks were snapping between Nesha-tari’s fingers.
John Deskata put two fingers in his mouth and whistled, so piercing and sharp that everyone winced and looked at him.
The one-time Centurion of the Codian Legions shook his head and gave everyone in the room a look of profound disgust, the sort of look that a drill sergeant would level on an utterly incompetent band of raw recruits. He had stood up and was buckling on his breastplate, and when it was secure he sheathed his sword at his side and hoisted his tower shield. He spoke as he walked for the door.
“While you jackasses sort this out, I’ll be on the roof watching for devils, or demons, or dragons creeping up on us. And if any of you harebrained, pigheaded, halfwits are still alive come morning, you might recollect that we have a Duchess to rescue? Anyone? A wizard and a book, the very thought of which almost made a couple hundred wugs and hobgoblins shat themselves? Does any of this ring a bell within any of your thick skulls?”
Deskata had reached the door, which he jerked open. He turned and glared at everyone from the doorway.
“Amateurs,” he growled, as though it were the worst oath in any language. He slammed the door though it did not catch, and his heavy footfalls stomped up the stairs to the roof.
It had been enough to diffuse the immediate situation. Heggenauer and Shikashe had separated enough that Amatesu was between them and keeping them apart at arms length. Nesha-tari’s hands were balled into fists again, and while they still glowed faintly blue she was no longer maneuvering for room to attack.
“Brother Heggenauer,” Amatesu said softly.
The Exlander was flushed and he continued to glare at Nesha-tari, but he did let his mace hang loose in his hand, pointing at the floor.
“I will not cooperate with a woman in thrall to an evil Dragon,” he said. “Her motives for being here are too clouded.”
“Brother Heggenauer,” Amatesu said again, and waited until he looked at her.
“If you will not associate with the Madame Nesha-tari because of the one she may serve, then surely you cannot cooperate with me. I have served evil. As has his lordship Uriako-sama. Both of us have in fact done great evil, in our time.”
Tilda blinked at the shukenja, and Heggenauer frowned down at her.
“I find that hard to believe, Miss Amatesu,” he said.
“It is only true.”
Amatesu looked at Shikashe, who had backed off a step and stood watching Heggenauer. The samurai met Amatesu’s gaze for a moment, and nodded. The woman lowered her eyes to the floor. They exchanged a few quiet words, and Amatesu took a deep breath. She swallowed, and began speaking, and she spoke for a long time.
*
Once upon a time, on the northern-most island of Ashinan which is called Korusbo as it is the place where in winter the Gendji cranes come in pairs to dance on the snow by the rivers, there lived a young swordsman of great prospect. Though his family was of the native Korus people rather than of the overlord Ashinese, the young man’s skill was such that he was accepted as a retainer of the daimyo, that is chief, of the region. The young swordsman was trained in the ways of the warrior that are called bushido, and he became samurai in his daimyo’s service.
When his daimyo made war on his neighbors the young samurai served his master faithfully and well, and for this he was rewarded with the prized fiefdom of Sekibune, through which a great river flows to the sea and where the hills are all covered with tall trees straight as arrows that can be used for many things. It was the finest fiefdom in all the daimyo’s lands and when it was given to the young man of the Korus people, some among the lord’s Ashinese retainers took it hard. These men grew jealous that the daimyo should show such favor to a man who was both young and a foreigner in their eyes, though it was they who had come to Korusbo from Great Ashinan.
With his high reputation and rich fiefdom the young samurai was fit to take a goodly wife, and though his daimyo had a beautiful daughter of the correct age, it happened that the samurai came to be enamored of another. She was an Ashinese noblewoman of great virtue and beauty who came to visit Korusbo from the main island, where her family was high in the Shogun’s court. Her name was Matsuko, and she came to Korusbo in winter to see the dancing of the Gendji cranes by the river in Sekibune. The master of that place took her to see the birds, dancing two-by-two, and there he fell in love with her, and she with him. The two were soon wed.
Then did the jealous retainers of the daimyo whisper to their lord that his favored samurai had affronted him by not asking for the daimyo’s daughter to be his wife. What was more, they said that in marrying Matsuko the samurai sought only to forge a tie to the Shogun’s court in Ashinan, which someday would allow him to become lord beyond Sekibune. The daimyo listened to their poison words and when in due time the couple had as their first child a girl they called Fu-Shora, he made as his gift to them a young woman from the village of Mabinuma. She came to the samurai’s house to serve Matsuko and was welcomed, but the gift was not as it seemed. The people of Mabinuma were of the secret clans known as the ninja, and they spent all of their days practicing the ways of stealth, and of trickery, and of living in shadow. The young woman came not as a simple servant of Matsuko and her new child, but as the eyes and the ears of the daimyo within the samurai’s house.
For a time there was peace in the daimyo’s lands and all prospered, though none quite so much as did the samurai whose fief of Sekibune was by the river and the sea. He was a just ruler and Matsuko was wise, and together they made Sekibune a pleasant place for its people, and in turn they were blessed with a fine son who they named Shikorus. On a high hill in the timber above the mouth of the river with the rocky coast all around, the samurai made a great house in which the family lived. In winter they had only to step out from their front door to see the Gendji cranes dancing by the river in pairs, with the light feet of the graceful birds never breaking the crust of the snow.
In time it came to be that all of the most important visitors to the daimyo’s land, be they Ashinese nobles, representatives from the Celestial Empire on Cho Lung, or even traders from distant Miilark, all alike would come to Sekibune when they were on Korusbo, and the hospitality of the samurai’s house became as renown as had been the skill of his sword in the time of war. The daimyo’s jealous retainers never ceased to whisper in his ears, and though the woman he had put in the samurai’s house as a spy told him truthfully that the man never spoke a word against his master, nor suffered to hear one from another, the poison within the daimyo’s heart only festered, and grew.
In a year when the winter was exceptionally hard the daimyo was persuaded to offer his samurai a quest, which all believed the man would surely refuse to the great detriment of his increasing honor. He was told he must go north and into the deep mountains, where no man goes in winter, there to find the blades of the great hero Ozari Ieysuna who had perished there centuries before. Though the samurai knew the peril of such a quest, it was not within him to decline. His wife and children wept for him and begged him not to go, for in winter fierce spirits dwelled in the icy mountains. Yet the samurai would refuse no request of his daimyo, and so he went away from Matsuko and his little children Fu-Shora and Shikorus, and he turned his face to the north.
When winter turned to spring, he did not return, and neither as spring became summer, nor as summer changed to fall. It was believed by all that the samurai had perished, and though his family was left in possession of Sekibune and their fine house, they wore the colors of mourning and were aggrieved all of their days. Yet when winter came again, and the cranes returned to dance by the river, then did the samurai come down out of the mountains of the north. He brought with him the two swords of Ozari Ieysuna, the long katana that is called the Breath of Winter and the short wakizashi that is called the Knife of Ice. Then his fame knew no bounds in all of Ashinan, yet he cared for it not for his joy was all in returning to his family. But his return brought no joy to his jealous master.
The daimyo demanded that the swords be given to him, but the samurai said this was a thing that he could not do for the blades had been given unto him as a sacred trust by a spirit of the mountains. Then was the daimyo greatly wrathful, and though he would do nothing openly against so great a hero he had in his power more shadowy means. In his poisoned heart he found the will to use them.
The young woman from the ninja clan of Mabinuma had lived with the samurai’s family for years almost as a second daughter and as a sister to the children, and she had shared in their grief while the samurai was believed dead. Yet she was ordered by her clan to act against them, and it was a thing she could not refuse to do. She added to their food from certain plants that are known only to the ninja, and a great sickness came upon the family. The samurai proved strong enough to survive, but not so his wife Matsuko, his daughter Fu-Shora, and his little son Shikorus.
When the daimyo learned that the samurai would live he put aside all pretense of decency and sent retainers to finish him, but even in his sickness the samurai was spirited away by his wife’s family and taken to the main island of Ashinan. There he recovered his strength, and then he brought it back against the treacherous daimyo and his dishonorable retainers. There was a great slaughter in the province, not only of the men, but also of their families, and indeed of anyone who stood in the samurai’s way. His vengeance knew no assuagement, and he carried it even to the village of Mabinuma and slew all that he found there, though he did not find the young woman who had been as a member of his household while his children lived out their short lives.
He followed her trail for a year, and found her at last in the temple called the Gidoji, in the vast desert of the Celestial Empire which is known as the Waterless Sea. There he learned that she had not fled from his vengeance, but rather from her own conscience, for the thing she had been made to do had broken her heart for all time. Before the great altar of the Gidoji, the samurai brought the Breath of Winter to her throat as she prayed, and though she did not resist the samurai saw in her eyes that there was no vengeance for him in ending her miserable life, for the ninja had died with the family that she slew. All that was left was a woman who had given herself over to the kindly spirits, that she might live out her mournful days as shukenja, doing no more harm to anyone.
There before the altar at Gidoji the samurai threw down his sword, and fell to the ground, and wept when he thought of the things that he had done in the name of unquenchable vengeance, and in doing so his desire for vengeance was banished. His grief though would go on without end, and he would never return to Ashinan nor Korusbo nor to Sekibune, where in winter the Gendji cranes still come to dance by the rivers, two-by-two. Instead he went out from Gidoji, and in time away from Cho Lung, and in more time from the Farthest West altogether, to wander always in foreign lands. And with him went the shukenja who had been ninja, for she is the only one who feels his grief, and his guilt, even as he does himself.
*
Amatesu had spoken flatly, without emotion, but when she finished there were tears standing in her eyes. Zeb had whispered a translation for Nesha-tari, and several times his own voice had cracked. Nesha-tari’s eyes were dry, and wide.
Heggenauer stood in the middle of the room with his mace hanging loose in his hand, forgotten. He looked from the small woman in front of him to Uriako Shikashe. The samurai stood with his arms crossed and his swords sheathed, his face as cold and impenetrable as the mountains where he had been sent to die. John Deskata had come back to the doorway at some point and stood there, staring. Tilda was sitting against a wall with her face in her hands.
“Why have you told me this?” Heggenauer asked.
Amatesu looked up, and the tears rolled down her face. Her voice remained unchanged.
“I tell you because you should know that not everyone may choose their own masters. Yet it remains in our power to choose what we will or will not do for them, if we are willing to bear the consequences. I tell you this because Uriako Shikashe and myself have now traveled with the Madame Nesha-tari for nearly a third of a year, and no matter who she serves, we have seen her do nothing you would call evil. Though we know that at times this has pained her.”
Shikashe slowly drew the shorter of his two swords, and held the diamond-patterned pommel out toward Heggenauer. The priest stared at it before looking questioningly to Amatesu.
“If it is truly not within you to tolerate any who may have done evil, Brother Heggenauer, then you should begin with Uriako-sama and myself. I suggest you start with me, as I will not resist you.”
Heggenauer stared at the shukenja and the white steel blade of the sword, then took a step back, shaking his head. He looked at the Far Westerners and swallowed before speaking in a raspy voice.
“I am deeply sorry for you both.”
Shikashe nodded, and sheathed his sword with a snap.
“Can we go rescue Claudja now?” Tilda asked in a small voice.
Amatesu looked over at Zeb and Nesha-tari, who were standing together by a wall. Zeb was leaning against it, as he had actually forgotten to be afraid of the Dragon Cultist, and whatever else she was, for the last several minutes.
“Does Madame Nesha-tari agree that we may take the Duchess from this place?” Amatesu asked. Zeb asked the question in Zantish, and Nesha-tari frowned.
“What do I care?”
“She says yes,” Zeb said in Codian.
“And the wizard, Phinneas?” Amatesu asked.
Zeb asked that as well, and Nesha-tari thought for a moment before answering.
“The Shugak fear only what harm he could do with the book in Vod‘Adia. I merely wish to see that he does not use it to fulfill Horayachus’s purpose for the Duchess. So long as that is prevented, I do not give a fig for what happens to either of them.”
“Another yes,” Zeb said.
Amatesu nodded, and turned back to Heggenauer.
“Are you satisfied, Brother?”
The acolyte of Jobe looked at Nesha-tari, then around the room at the others who met his gaze.
“I am only trying to do what is right,” he said.
“That is as much as any of us can do,” Amatesu agreed.
There was silence, until John Deskata knocked on the doorjamb and jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
“Second watch, people,” he said. “Who wants it?”
Nesha-tari made no comment, and though she had not stood watch on the previous evening she moved through the door and out into the night.
Zeb made his way toward his pack and bedroll, passing by Tilda who was still squatting on her haunches with her back to the wall. He stopped and held a hand down to her. She took it and wiped her eyes with the back of a sleeve as she stood.
“Are you all right?” Zeb asked. Tilda nodded and did not quite meet his eyes.
“I’m fine. I just…I miss my family.”
Zeb squeezed her hand before he let it go, and Tilda looked at him.
“You?” she asked.
Zeb Warchild gave a short nod, for it was easier than saying he had never had any family for him to miss now.