I squatted just out of his reach and leered at him like a gargoyle. "It has occurred to you, has it not, that I am a Talion?" I lifted my right palm and showed him the tattoo for a brief look, as if playing a game with an infant. "Worse yet, I am a Justice." I tossed my bloody tsincaat aside with my left hand and opened my right hand more slowly this time. "You know what this is."
The man nodded and blubbered. Tears rolled from his eyes and ran along his scar.
I mocked him in a voice meant for scolding children. "And you know you are going to die."
He nodded again and wet himself.
I crouch-hopped forward, reached down with my left hand, and grabbed a fistful of greasy black hair. I pulled him up into a kneeling position. "Silly man. If you had gone, I would have let you live." I looked back at his dead companions. "I would have let them live, but you would not let me give you life." I smiled simply at him. "Now I have to kill you."
I ground my palm into his forehead and slowly breathed in. I willed his soul into me and I felt him shudder as it tore free and his life dissolved. Every one of his thoughts and fears, hopes and desires, trickled through me and across my brain. I watched it all and I laughed at him. I looked down as the light of life faded in his eyes and I laughed so he knew I knew his failings.
I ridiculed his vanity and scoffed at his lofty hopes. My mirth reduced everything he'd ever done to insignificance. His life did not pass before his eyes as he died, it flashed through mine, and he saw his life had been a battle against the obscurity that swallowed him in death here in the Zandrian wilderness.
He wanted everlasting fame and monuments.
I gave him ignominious death and a scavenger's stomach for a sepulchre.
He slumped over as his soul sloughed his body off. I straightened to my full height. I clenched my bloodstained hands like claws. I studied him for any further sign of life I could steal from him, but he was dead.
I stared down at him in scorn. He had been a fool, and had paid the ultimate price for his stupidity. He had not deserved to live.
Then a quiet voice whispered inside my head. Neither had he deserved to die.
I staggered to the stream and knelt in the water, but no matter how long I washed my hand, it refused to feel clean.
* * *
The next morning Marana awoke, but said nothing about the dead bodies scattered nearby, and did not notice me even though she practically stepped on me as she drifted toward the pool. I stood, stripped off my clothes, and slipped into the water with her. Then she marked my presence, clutched her arms modestly to her breasts, and rebuked me sharply.
I froze. She spoke in flawless Temuri, and did not know me.
Marana shuddered and would have collapsed, but I lunged for her and caught her. She recoiled as she had in the camp, then threw her arms around my neck and started to cry again.
I carried her back to the lean-to and tried to make her drink more vila tea, but she refused. "Nolan, sleep does not help me. My dreams are not my own."
I read the horror in her eyes and crushed her to my chest. I hung on tightly and wished I could absorb some of her pain, but she had already begun to drift away. I could not reach her, and I could not share her pain.
Gently she pulled away, but the second I released her she jumped up and summoned her tsincaat. She stroked it across her own left wrist, then leveled the bloody blade at me. "Nolan, if you love me, don't stop me. You don't know what it's like to have someone else in your mind. I don't know who I am anymore, but I do know that if I'd been left to die the way I was meant to, those people back in that camp would still be alive."
I stared horrified as her blood traced a scarlet line from her wrist to elbow and dripped off with fluid regularity. With each heartbeat one drop drummed away on rock or leaf. Her tsincaat hung there, motionless, and pointed straight at my heart.
I clenched my fists, but could not stop the tears from burning parallel tracks down my face. I nodded toward her wrist and fought to force words through my thick throat. "You might as well kill me now and get it over with, because you're killing me in pieces with each drop of blood."
She shook her head and veiled her shoulders with long black hair. "No, Nolan, my life is over. I killed those people because I am alive when I was never meant to be. I know I am a demon." She choked back tears. "I am, Nolan, I am a demon. I was inside Bethany's head, and I saw myself as she did."
I stood slowly and opened my hands. "No, Marana, you are not a demon. You are no more a demon that my brother Arik was. Just because some fool chooses to believe the sun is purple, that does not make it so." I took one step forward so Marana's tsincaat hovered an inch away from my breastbone.
Her jaw trembled. "Don't, Nolan, don't try anything. I don't want to kill you."
I stepped closer yet and felt the tip of her blade against my flesh. "Then bind your wrist because the moment you die I will too."
Pain lanced through her face. "Nolan, I have nothing to live for."
I smiled gently, lovingly, and slowly raised my right hand toward her left wrist. "Live for me, Marana, live for me."
She fought against it, but life won and she dropped her tsincaat. "Help me," she whimpered, then fainted.
* * *
We stretched our journey back to Talianna over four days. Slowly Marana's condition improved. Nightmares still plagued her, but she never spoke to me in Temuri or tried to kill herself again. I spent my nights just holding her and hugging her until she succumbed to exhaustion and I felt safe enough to drift off to sleep.
We reached Talianna in midmorning and I convinced Marana that she should land first and go through Shar. I knew she'd taken no souls, but I thought the time spent purging herself of this mission might finally break the link and erase the memory of her sister. I hoped Shar would give me back my Marana.
I kept Valiant aloft while Marana landed and circled the valley. I'd had no time to think about what I'd done to the kidnappers because I dared not leave Marana alone after she tried to kill herself. That night's actions burst back into my brain in harsh black-and-white tones. I saw their faces and felt their terror all over again.
Inside me anger flared. Why had they been so driven to force me to slay them? Why had I allowed myself to get out of control? Why had Marana suffered so, when she was only a vessel, a conduit, for the magick used to find the Emir's wife? "Why," I screamed furiously, "why did it have to be Marana?"
Suddenly my rage focused itself and bored through my confusion to answer my questions. His Excellency!
I'd been used; Marana had been used. I remembered Lord Hansur waiting for His Excellency to add a remark back when he gave us the assignment, and I recalled His Excellency's forced surprise when Marana announced the ring fit perfectly. I recalled Marana saying His Excellency would give her no information about who she was or where she was found.
He knew all along what would happen! My body itched as if I were a chess pawn and I could feel his hands moving and positioning me. Marana was a piece to be sacrificed in a gambit and nothing more. He'd allowed her to be taken and removed from the board but, unlike the Guardians waiting for another game in the Tuzist valley, Marana could not play again. She was shattered, and he'd permitted it.
I flew Valiant down to the Mews and didn't notice Erlan until he grabbed me by the arm. "Nolan, what's wrong?"
I turned toward him and gaped openmouthed until his voice worked through my anger, and his face swam into focus. I grabbed him by both shoulders. "Erlan, you must do something for me."
The worry didn't leave his face but he nodded emphatically. "Whatever you need ..."
I rubbed my left hand against my forehead and concentrated. "I'm Sharul, Erlan, but I'm not within Talianna's shadow yet." I trembled, then recovered myself. "Erlan, I need you to find His Excellency. Tell him I'm waiting out behind the Mews."
The Elite frowned with worry not skepticism. "What do I tell him when he asks why you're waiting."
I just shook my head. "He won't ask."
In the five minutes it took His Excellency to find me, my rage blossomed from a blaze to a full conflagration that nearly caused me to wait in ambush for him. I watched him pick his way up the hill toward the Mews and my right hand tingled in anticipation of closing about the hilt of my tsincaat and driving it through him. But I did not call the blade; I'd been trained too well to do that.
He stepped into the meadow and opened his mouth, but I never gave him a chance to say anything. "How could you, you fat spider? You knew who she was and what would happen!" I stabbed a finger at him and tears blurred his image beyond humanity. "You sent Marana out there not caring what would happen to her."
He stopped, folded his arms across his chest, and rested them on his distended belly. I screamed in inarticulate ire and ground my fists into my eyes. "Damn you! Seven people died, seven innocent people, because you did not warn us how the Temuri would treat Marana! Because you didn't tell us she and Bethany were twins I was forced to butcher five other men. Because," I sobbed, sinking to my knees, "you didn't tell us, Marana is mad."
Drained of my anger, I cried, then looked up at him. "Why?" I wanted to ask him why I shouldn't kill him, but I was sick of killing. I wanted him to justify Marana's sacrifice. I wanted a reason for my pain.
His Excellency spoke evenly and allowed no trace of emotion to creep into his voice. "Yes, Nolan, I knew Marana's identity, and I knew she might suffer because of the magick and from meeting her twin. Once, years ago, even before you joined us, someone remarked on Marana's resemblance to a Temuri girl pledged to wed the Emir. I checked and because I know Temuri custom, I was able to surmise who she was."
He looked down at me. "Yes, I put her at risk, just as I did with you and Jevin." His Excellency turned away.
"No!" I pounded my right fist into the ground, rose, and grabbed his left shoulder. "Jevin and I risked our lives, but you risked her sanity! What gives you that right?"
His Excellency spun with an agility that surprised me. He locked my arms in a granite grip and lifted me from the ground as if I were a child. "I have that right, Talion, because I hold the fate of dynasties in my hands. You kill men and women; I destroy whole nations. I have that right because I can devastate empires with an error in transcription of a coded message!"
He released me and I fell at his feet. "If you had not gone to retrieve Bethany, the Emir would have sent troops into Zandria. Zandria would have counterattacked and Boucan would have swallowed both of them. Ell would have been threatened and war would have erupted along that border. Other nations would have joined the battle and the world would have returned to the days of the Shattering."
His eyes narrowed. "You are smart, Nolan. I saw your doubt at ever being able to find one woman in all of Zandria. You knew the task was not merely difficult, it was impossible. I knew that, but I also knew what would happen if we failed. Faced with the choice between one Justice's mind, and war wasting thousands of square miles, I had but one course. To prevent that widespread a conflict I would gladly send you or a hundred like you to a certain death. If I needed an excuse to withdraw support for a regime to forestall a war, I might even arrange the death of a Justice within the capital."
Uncontrollable sobs wracked me. "It's just a big game, isn't it?"
His Excellency shook his head slowly and his steely composure cracked. "No, Talion, a game it is not. There are times I wish it were. If this had been a game I could reset the pieces. Marana would not hurt and you would not question what you know in your heart of hearts is right. The innocent people you speak of would still live.
"But it is not a game. Do not misunderstand my words. As willing as I am to expend lives, if the situation demands it, I mourn each death, each injury."
I stared up at His Excellency with tear-flooded eyes. For the first and only time saw the human hidden within that massive frame. He was a political mastermind who formed and caused to be executed nearly perfect plans to combat the world's tendency toward barbarism. Even though he had supreme confidence in his actions and knew them to be vital and correct, he regretted every bit of pain his plans caused. I knew in that instant that I might understand him, but I could never call him friend.
His Excellency turned away, and this time I let him go unmolested.
* * *
The black slab slid upward in the Shar Chamber and I stared at the blazing skull in the hopes it might blind me, but it did not. I walked forward and knelt slowly. I felt physically purged, yet, despite my careful and diligent effort in the rest of the cleansing ritual, I never expected to be clean again.
I raised my right hand and pressed my palm to the skull's forehead. As before, something stole into me and slipped along my arm, up through my neck and into my brain. It strung battle images together with my emotions and forced me to watch them over and over again.
A voice spoke within my head as I watched myself slaying the Temuri on the sandbar. "Here you have no cause for regret." The picture of Marana bound and struggling amid wood gathered for a bonfire hovered before me. "You fought to defend your friend and lover. That they were not those you first sought means nothing. Do not doubt your actions here."
Those macabre memories dissipated like smoke, and the battle against the four kidnappers flowed in to replace them. I heard the men laugh as they pursued me, and I heard my voice begging them to leave as I retreated. I relived the moment of horror when I realized I could run no further. I even recalled slaying each of them.
The voice's appraisal in that instance did not rebuke me either. "You warned them and tried to leave them their lives, but they only gave you a choice between your death or their deaths. Blood was to flow that night, and you chose correctly."
Then it took hold of the lead kidnapper's soul and lashed it across my mind like a whip. I heard my laughter as it rang in his ears, and I felt myself crumbling inside. I shared his hopelessness and utter humiliation. I died with him and realized what I had done: I'd crushed and tortured his spirit until I stripped him of his humanity.
"This, Talion, this should never be done." Fiery white hot lances of pain stabbed through my brain. "Steal his soul, destroy his body, kill him, but never shred his spirit."
The pain faded, and the voice fell silent as the leader's soul trickled down my arm and into the skull to vanish in a twisting stream of blue light. "Had you not already regretted what you did, your soul would have followed his. Remember, Talion, justice is your gift to the world, not a right to demand from it."
It withdrew from me and released me so swiftly that I fell back and lay too weak to rise from the floor. The stone radiated cold up through my sweat-slicked back and I shivered. I lay there and breathed heavily as the skull's shimmering light died. Then, in utter darkness, I rose and staggered to my tsincaat and ryqril. I pulled them from the altar and, as the exterior panel rose, I stumbled into the corridor.
A tear rolling down her left cheek, Marana stood waiting for me. She extended a note toward me. "He said it was important. I brought it immediately."
I turned it over in my hand and swore. It was from Lothar.
Chapter Twenty-One
Talion: Terminus
I slid my thumb beneath the flap, broke the red wax seal, and unfolded the coarse sheet of paper. The note was short:
"Lord Nolan, I've found someone you'll want to hear for yourself. I'll keep him here. Come to the Gallant Fox, knock twice on the door. When challenged answer, 'Lord Nolan.' " The note was signed "Morai."
I refolded the brown sheet and stuffed it inside my leather tunic. Princess Zaria looked at me, and her expression reflected the concern etched into my features. I gave her a heartening smile and looked up for Halsted, but he had already vanished.
She frowned, more from worry than anger, and nodded toward where the note resided. "What does it say?"
I stripped off my mask and shook my head. "More than it was supposed to, I think. A friend of mine is in trouble." Disappointment shadowed her face and I reached out to squeeze her shoulders. "
Do you remember what I said the other night?"
She smiled weakly and nodded. "You said only something of grave importance would carry you away from me."
I nodded solemnly. "I meant it. My friend's life is in danger. I must save him." I stepped away and headed toward the ballroom, then turned back. "And I promise, nothing will keep me away at midnight."
I stalked quickly through the ballroom and tried to hide my anxiety beneath a blank smile. I nodded and laughed when complimented on my costume, but I did not stop or linger in one place. Finally I saw Patrick dancing with his wife and waited nervously for the music to end.
I pounced on the two of them quickly, and for a moment the Count thought I wished to steal his wife for a dance. I shook my head, "Not that I would not be honored, my friend, but right now I need your help." I gave him the note and he scanned it quickly. "A life is in danger. I need you to tell me about the Gallant Fox."
Patrick's eyes narrowed. "This note does not indicate danger."
I nodded solemnly. "Yes it does. Morai is illiterate."
It took the Count a moment to absorb the significance of that fact; then he stared at me. "If he's in danger, then so are you." He nodded toward the main entrance to the ballroom. "Come, we can be there in minutes."
I shook my head twice. "No, I have to go alone. Just tell me where it is."
He scratched his head, thought for a moment and, after the hurt of my rejecting his offer of help faded, nodded. "I remember where it is, but it's been closed for six months." I leaned forward and prompted him. "Head off down the road we took to get to the temple and take the second right. The road goes uphill past the old cemetery and curves around toward the sea. About a mile along it you will come to the Gallant Fox on the right side of the street." He shook his head regretfully. "Are you sure I cannot help?"
I shook my head more slowly this time and extended my hand to him. "No, Patrick, I cannot risk your life in this." He took my hand and we shook firmly. "If you really want to help me, watch the Princess and be her Champion until I return."