Arnem shrugs. “I should think to evil men.”
But Caliphestros shakes his head. “No. Evil, when it truly exists, is far too easily detected to be of the greatest danger. The most dangerous men in the world are those who—for reasons of their own—put their names and services at the disposal of what they see, at the time, as good causes. The greatest, the truest evil, then, is that undertaken by good men who cannot see or, worse, will not see the wickedness they serve. And there is one such man in Broken, perhaps the last of his breed, whose power and motivations have long made him a source of profound concern.”
Arnem nods grimly. “You refer to me.”
But Caliphestros seems surprised. “To you, Sentek? I do not. But more of such philosophical matters at a later time. We have pressing business to discuss, without delay.”
“Indeed—I see that you have called for truce, Caliphestros,” the sentek replies. “May I safely assume, then, that you, like your former acolyte, have somehow found it in your soul to forgive my participation in your torture and intended abandonment to death?”
“You may assume nothing, Sentek,” Caliphestros replies. “For it is not I who have called for truce.”
“No?” Arnem asks. “Well, it cannot have been the member of your party who was presiding over the game of knucklebones as I approached, surely.”
“No,” Caliphestros says, leaning over, stroking the white panther’s neck, in a motion both vague and clearly threatening toward his opponents, and glancing at the now-fearful Heldo-Bah with a deep anger. “It would be neither my place nor his to assert such authority within the Bane tribe, nearly all of whom were as ignorant or uncertain of my continued existence as were you and your people, until a matter of days ago. You must address yourself to the Groba Father and his Elders, who alone speak for the Bane. Were it up to me …” And at this instant both the old man and the panther look up as one, Caliphestros’s slate grey eyes and Stasi’s brilliant green orbs seeming to contain an inscrutable sentiment: “Were it up to me, I might well have allowed every soldier in the Broken army to enter Davon Wood, to share in the fate already met, and so richly deserved, by the khotor of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard.” But then Caliphestros’s manner softens. “Although that is likely my half-legs, and not my mind, speaking.”
Arnem nods knowingly. “I believe so,” he says, his tone contrite. “For of all people, I suspect that you know that to speak of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard and the true soldiers of Broken, especially the Talons that face you now, as if they were in any way similar, does neither my men nor your wisdom justice.”
“True,” Caliphestros replies. “And that is the only reason why I am here …”
Still attempting practicality, Arnem nods and states, “Your attention to protocol is wisely worded, and I shall heed it.” He then looks at the man who, by his slightly superior appearance and bearing, he takes to be the Bane leader. “You are the Groba Father, then?”
The Father, who more than makes up in courage what he lacks in height, takes one or two steps forward. “I am, Sentek,” he says with great courage, earning him respect among members of both lines of the truce. “And perhaps it would, as my friend Lord Caliphestros intimates, be the most honest way to begin this discussion by telling you that the Merchant Lord might have sent emissaries, rather than his personal Guard, to us, and together we might have addressed the terrible ailments that we now know afflict your people as well as, at least in the case of what Lord Caliphestros calls the rose fever, our own. But instead, he chose our moment of weakness to attempt to achieve the long-cherished, inexplicable desire of your God-King and the Kafran priests to destroy our tribe.” Taking one deep, steadying breath, the Father finishes: “Which, I gather, was your original reason for leaving the walls of your foul city, as well.”
“Not our reason, Father,” Arnem says grimly. “Our orders. But know this—that same order cost me both my teacher and my oldest friend—”
The Groba Father nods. “Yantek Korsar.”
“As well as Gerolf Gledgesa,” Caliphestros adds solemnly.
Surprised, Arnem looks for a moment to Caliphestros, and then at Visimar. “Well—whatever ‘science’ you two practice, I continue to learn why it terrified the priests of Kafra so. For this is not knowledge I expected you to possess.”
Caliphestros shrugs. “In the first instance, simply an accident of discovery, Sentek,” he says. “In the second, a communication from Visimar. There was no great mystery in either case. But please—proceed …”
Arnem resumes, still a little unnerved by Visimar’s and now Caliphestros’s ability to state matters of fact before the sentek himself can reveal them, “That order not only cost myself and my kingdom such men, but was issued long before we knew of any diseases at large throughout either your or our own people, or of any attempt to remake the city of Broken itself by use of violent force. Had these facts been known to me in advance … I can say that I should not have been willing to play a part in them.”
“Some would say that you ought to have questioned such orders, nevertheless,” Caliphestros declares flatly. “Yantek Korsar certainly did—and I have seen his body hanging along the banks of the Cat’s Paw, as a result.”
Arnem blanches considerably, before murmuring, “Have you, indeed …?” Then he uses his commander’s discipline to try to recover his composure, and looks to the Groba Father. “And would you, sir, also have expected me to thus disregard orders? It is well and good for exiles and men of the shadows to talk thus—” He glances at Caliphestros. “But could you forgive such impertinence from the man I now suspect to be at once one of our most formidable and most honorable opponents, over the years—Yantek Ashkatar?” Arnem lifts a respectful finger to indicate the stout Bane commander with the coiled whip, who, in his turn, draws himself up more proudly.
Considering the question momentarily, the Groba Father replies, “No, Sentek Arnem. We likely could not. Very well, then. We shall accept your answer in the spirit of this truce and this … negotiation. But the Groba will ask you an equally direct and crucial question, in return, one that I hope you can answer in the same manner—” Now stepping further to the nearly precise midway point between the two lines of negotiators and the spot where stands the Ox, with his rider sitting high above, and earning still more respect among the officers of the Talons for doing so, the Groba Father locks gazes with Arnem fully before asking:
“Will you, Sentek, agree to having your eyes and hands bound, and in that condition, to accompanying our party to Okot, there to observe the full effects that the fever with which your people have poisoned the Cat’s Paw have wrought, and to discuss what our forces may do together to bring a halt to the crisis, both for your people’s sake and for our own? Lord Caliphestros seems to think that you will—but I confess to my own doubts. You see, as a younger trader, I once spent a very long night beneath the Merchants’ Hall in Broken …”
Arnem sits back in his saddle: plainly, this not a question that he has anticipated.
“It is the simplest way in which to demonstrate to you how at least the one disease—the rose fever—is spread,” says Caliphestros. “As well as how and where both it and the Ignis Sacer—the Holy Fire—may be originating within the city and kingdom of Broken: which, I believe I have determined, is indeed their source—a determination that your own wife, I suspect, has made, which is part of the reason she is now so persecuted.”
“My wife?” Arnem echoes. “You have been in communication with my wife? And you know where the fever originates, Caliphestros?” Arnem says, shock following upon shock. “For we have already determined, with Visimar’s and, I suspect, your aid, that the rose fever taints the waters of the Cat’s Paw. How can you know its origin more exactly?”
“In good time,” Caliphestros responds. “Finally, the journey to Okot will also give me a chance to show you how the fabled walls of Broken may at last be breached and the Merchant Lord defeated, should you deem it right—or, more to the point
, necessary—to do so. For you see, after many years of study, I have at last discovered the meaning of, and the solution to, the Riddle of Water, Fire, and Stone.”
Arnem’s face betrays shock, once more, and this time it is a shock shared by the Broken commanders behind him. “Truly, old man? Then that riddle was not merely one more fancy of our founding king, Oxmontrot—whom men such as Lord Baster-kin insist on calling ‘mad’—in the years before his death?”
“The longer I live, Sentek,” Caliphestros replies, “the less I believe that any of Oxmontrot’s thoughts were ‘fancies’—or that he was mad, at all.” The old man sits back on Stasi’s shoulders. “Well, Sixt Arnem—will you agree to the Father’s proposition, and come to the place your superstitious citizens call the center of all that is malevolent?”
“Sentek—no, you cannot!” Niksar whispers urgently, and the other officers of the Talons murmur like warnings.
“Don’t listen to that man, Sentek,” Heldo-Bah quickly interjects. “He still owes me money!”
“I have told you, forager,” Niksar replies angrily, “the money is in my tent—”
“I shall of course stay within the Talons’ camp,” announces Ashkatar, taking a step forward of his own and attempting to quash this momentary, foolish squabble. “As a guarantee of Sentek Arnem’s safety. So shall the foragers who brought Lord Caliphestros to us, in the first place.”
Heldo-Bah’s eyes suddenly look as if they will burst. “What?” he fairly screams. “I will be damned if I will do any such thing!”
“You will be damned, whatever your actions!” Keera declares, quietly but passionately. “Which is why we thought it best not to consult you on the matter.” She turns and takes the few steps needed to put her angry face in his. “In the name of our people, in the name of my family that saved you, in the name of my children, who, for whatever innocent reasons of their own, love you as they would any true uncle, you will do this thing, Heldo-Bah!”
Realizing that he has already been utterly outmaneuvered, Heldo-Bah allows his face and shoulders to sag with displeasure. “Very well,” he at length replies.
“It will at the least allow you to collect your silver from Linnet Niksar,” Veloc says tauntingly.
“And so—bring forth a blindfold, Visimar,” the sentek says, glancing at Caliphestros. “But I will make one request: may we make our visit as brief as possible? For it has been brought to my attention that you are correct in assuming my wife is in grave danger, Lord Caliphestros, and my men and I must march at once to her relief—a march upon which I should be proud to have the Bane army accompany us.” Arnem turns his eyes to the Bane leader. “Father?”
“We may be brief,” says the Father in reply, impressed by Arnem’s courage and invitation, both. “So long as we are thorough, as well.”
Arnem agrees with a silent nod, and looks again at the remarkable man atop the equally remarkable panther. “I assume your former acolyte will be accompanying us, my lord?”
Caliphestros smiles, now: the true smile of a man who has begun to be restored. “You assume correctly, Sentek …,” he says, at which Visimar brings forward a strip of clean cotton that Niksar has reluctantly produced for him.
“Must I, too, bind my eyes, master?” Visimar asks Caliphestros.
“You need not,” the latter replies with a small laugh. “But you must stop calling me ‘master.’ If I have learned nothing else from the last ten years, and from this noble tribe that has survived in so harsh a wilderness, it is that such titles, while they may belong within the kingdom of Broken, have no place outside it.”
“Then bind my eyes alone,” Arnem repeats, as the Groba Father issues a last set of quiet instructions to Ashkatar and Keera, and they then begin to make their way to the line of the Broken soldiers. “And do not despair, Niksar—for you must command, now, and that will be worry enough.” The sentek smiles briefly. “That and—paying your losses …” Arnem studies the faces of his “captors,” then dismounts the Ox, steps forward, and bids his mount farewell as he prepares to submit to the binding of his eyes.
At this moment, Caliphestros allows Stasi to stray somewhat closer to Arnem. It is not the Ox’s being led back to the line of the Talons by Niksar that causes the legless old philosopher to so approach: for both Arnem and the Ox know that, if plunged into a fury, the panther could take down even so impressive and mature a Broken warhorse as Arnem’s, and likely would: the last time Stasi saw such an animal, after all, was on that terrible day that her family was lost to her, seemingly forever. Rather, the old scholar desires a moment of confidentiality with the man he long ago and correctly surmised would be the only possible choice to fill Yantek Korsar’s position as commander of both the Talons and the army of Broken: “Again I urge you to remember one thing, above all, on this journey, Sentek,” he says. “The actors in this drama may all be playing far different roles than you have been trained to believe. Keep your mind open to the full range of possibilities, for such is the only true path to knowledge. Of any kind.”
Arnem smiles: a genuine and conciliatory expression of hope that the two men may soon be reconciled. “Ever the pedant, even without your legs, eh, Caliphestros?” he says, in such a way that the panther’s rider cannot but laugh again at his own manner. “Well, fear not,” Arnem adds. “I am prepared to heed your advice, I assure you.”
With Arnem’s sight securely if temporarily taken from him, all parties to the truce begin the processions—one short, one longer—back to their respective safe territories, when Arnem suddenly stops and turns back toward his own men.
“Radelfer,” the blindfolded sentek calls. “Will you tell my children where I have gone, and that I have every expectation of returning tomorrow?”
“I shall, Sentek,” Radelfer responds. “And, I believe I can now tell them that they need not fear for your safety—that you travel with an honorable people.”
And it is in this mood of perhaps promising confusion that the meeting under the snapping sheet of white cotton concludes, and the development of events that will only be more decisive commences.
“Feel and smell the breeze,” Arnem says, being led away by Visimar behind Caliphestros and Stasi.
“I have done so for quite some time, now,” Caliphestros answers, turning toward the Broken commander as they reach the members of the Bane Groba.
“It heralds rain,” the Groba Father comments, as the procession back toward the Fallen Bridge begins. “Will that interfere with what you have planned, Lord Caliphestros?”
A deeply satisfied smile enters the scholar’s features. “Only if it arrives too early, Father. But that it will arrive?” The old man seems for a moment almost anxious for events to unfold. “On that, I am relying—on that, the solution of the Riddle of Water, Fire, and Stone in our favor absolutely depends …”
The “Battle” for Broken
1.
DURING SENTEK ARNEM’S BRIEF VISIT to Okot, when that good man and great soldier did indeed learn that the members of the Bane tribe were neither demons, degenerates, nor defective human beings bent on betraying the current truce in order to further prepare their own assault on Broken, the wise and cunning Caliphestros had not been idle. Working, for the time being, without the assistance of the three Bane foragers upon whom he had come to rely, but with the once-familiar aid of his partially crippled acolyte, Visimar, as well as among a people who had come to accept his presence and give him whatever help they could, he had located the two largest carts in the town, as well as any and all brass pots, jugs, amphorae, and other containers that were available or could be made so. The latter were stacked and cradled inside the beds of the former, and the whole lot drawn up to the ag scholar’s cave laboratory: drawn, that is, by powerful Bane warriors, for the Bane had no oxen or cattle or horses of their own. Once there, each container was filled by Caliphestros and Visimar with one of several, usually foul-smelling substances: the true and mysterious fruits of the peculiar labors that Keera had, from t
ime to time, observed Caliphestros undertaking during his time among her people, ingredients which together formed the mysterious answer to the Riddle of Water, Fire, and Stone, an answer whose components needed to be treated gently, Caliphestros emphasized, during the journey back to Arnem’s camp on Lord Baster-kin’s Plain.
Despite the two old scholars’ inscrutable activities (the true explanation of which, Caliphestros had told the Bane again and again, would best be supplied when the results of the experiment took form before the gates of Broken), Sentek Arnem’s visit and behavior had established such an air of surprise and open trust in Okot, and so quickly, that it was a foregone conclusion that the Groba—when they met with him on the morning after his arrival, before his return to his camp—would indeed order Yantek Ashkatar to take as many of his men as Arnem deemed fit and place them under the sentek’s command, to be a part of the force that would now march back up Broken’s mountain to determine what, precisely, was the truth of the situation inside the city. There had, of course, been some argument from the Priestess of the Moon, who objected to there being no role in the campaign assigned to her Woodland Knights; but, when Sentek Arnem had assured both her and the Groba Elders that feeling in Broken against the Outragers ran every bit as high as did the Bane’s toward Lord Baster-kin’s Guard, and that their presence would only complicate and perhaps defeat the purpose of the endeavor, the Groba Father had decreed absolutely that the Outragers would not participate, even if only in a rearguard action to ensure that no troops from Broken slipped past the Talons and Ashkatar’s attack, to launch another assault on Davon Wood.
When the Bane commander had asked his counterpart from Broken how many of his tribe’s warriors Arnem would require to support his two khotors of Talons, the sentek’s answer had perhaps been predictable: only so many as could be armed with weapons forged from Caliphestros’s amazing new metal (which the sentek had climbed the mountain behind Okot to observe being made, with the greatest interest and satisfaction). The number had been placed at only some two hundred and fifty of the best-trained men and women in the tribe; for without such weapons, Arnem assured the Groba Elders, no Bane warrior dared participate in the coming attack on the mighty, granite-walled city. With these final issues decided, the return to Arnem’s camp had gotten under way. It was a march made far more arduous by the need to delicately handle Caliphestros’s carts, and to transport the contents, container by container, across the Fallen Bridge: each container was tightly sealed, that the fumes emitted by the various contents might not overcome its carrier or carriers—yet even at that, there were one or two near mishaps high above the Cat’s Paw. Once reassembled in the carts on the Plain, however, and with horses rather than men to draw the conveyances, progress moved at a much faster pace; but nothing could stop soldiers of either the Bane or Broken armies from wondering what could possibly be in the containers that might create such an effect.