Fingering the slingshot she had taken from my belt, she said, "This tunnel through the wall a it"s marked by a tree, you say?"

I stared at her. Then, feeling my head grow more fuzzy, I lay back against the pallet. "Does that matter?" I asked.

"If the Chara is trying to surprise our soldiers, he may want to steal into the city," my mother said slowly. "He may know about this tunnel from his spies" reports a or perhaps from the tales of a Daxion smuggler a and may use it as a way to sneak in some of his men."

After a moment, I thought to close my gaping mouth. "You ought to be a soldier," I said with open admiration.

"Your father taught me a lot," she murmured. She rose suddenly, put aside the slingshot, and brushed from her gown some of the dirt that had clung to her from me. "I"ll be back as quickly as I can. If anything happens before I return, run next door and follow wherever Raoul and his family go."

"But I want to go with you!" I tried to raise myself onto my elbow, but some dark heaviness seemed to weigh me down.

"You can"t," my mother said with a sad smile. "I"m sorry, but that was drugged wine I gave you. I thought you would need help sleeping tonight, what with all those scratches. I never would have given it to you if I"d known what you were going to tell me."

"You"re as sneaky as the Emorians," I mumbled. I was too tired even to protest that I was missing my chance to be savior to the Koretian army. My eyelids began to plunge down; then I opened them again as I felt my mother touch me on the arm. She was still smiling.

"Thank you for coming to me with this, rather than rushing off on your own," she said. "I appreciate how you have trusted me."

"Well, you"re a soldier"s widow," I said sleepily. "You"re more sensible than most women. When I come of age, I"ll find myself someone who is as wise as you are. Soldiers need smart wives."

She laughed, kissed my forehead, and left me dreaming of the woman I would one day marry.

I awoke to fire.

Part of the roof crashing onto the loom undoubtedly saved my life, for I jerked awake from its sound to find myself choking on black smoke, as though someone were pouring earth down my throat. For a moment I thought I was trapped in a nightmare. Then I realized what was happening and scrambled to my feet.

I arose too quickly, though. My drugged head spun, the smoke pinned my lungs to the wall of my chest, and I fell to my knees, coughing and holding my arm against my face to protect it from the fire that was eating at the fallen timber around me.

The house contained a strange mixture of shadings: as dark as a night-black storm in the center and as bright as a noonday sun on the edges. Sweat oozed like a cool rock-spring onto my skin, released from my body by the heat of the fire. An ember, as red as a demon"s eye, fell upon my bare leg, and I opened my mouth to scream, but was smothered by the blanket of smoke that forced itself into my throat, pushing back all attempts at breath. I flung my hands forward, trying to crawl blindly toward one of the fiery walls, then felt my legs shake and collapse.

For a moment, all was still. I heard nothing but the harsh tongue of the fire and saw nothing except the smoky darkness that had swallowed the house. Then something pulled at my shoulders, and I felt myself being dragged over the floor, pushed past flames that towered over me in an arch, and flung to the ground once more.

Fresh air, painful in its suddenness, poured into my mouth, and I began to cough again. I could do nothing for some time except crouch over the ground, first coughing, and then throwing forth the contents of my stomach. Finally, moist with sweat and spittle and sickness, I lifted my head and saw John.

He was kneeling beside me in the street, his tunic torn in spots, his body black with soot, and his hair singed short by the fire. He leaned over and shouted into my ear over the growing roar of the fire, "Your mother!"

I felt a jolt inside my rib cage before I remembered. "She went to the army headquarters!" I cried back.

"She"ll be safest there," John replied. Tugging at my hand, he pulled me to my feet and began to half-lead me, half-drag me through the fire-flanked street.

The thundering shout of the fire was too deep for me to hear any cries, and the night-covered streets were oddly deserted, all living inhabitants having already fled. Only the dead lay strewn about the streets like pieces of rubbish brought out to be burned. The fire had already swallowed some of them. Since I had seen many a funeral pyre, it did not disturb me to see the Jackal eating his dead, as the Koretians put it. But John and I both halted abruptly when we rounded a corner and found, crawling on the ground before us, a glowing, screaming figure of a man, trapped in the flames that coc.o.o.ned him like a well-fitted tunic.

His spirit was gone before either of us could react. We saw his body collapse and his untouched eyes grow dim. John recovered before I did, towing me past the body with a grip as tight as an eagle"s talons. The fire around us grew brighter and louder as we ran.

Then he stopped again. I had to clutch the side of a building to keep from tripping over him. Peering cautiously over his shoulder, I saw that we had reached the market square that was our last stretch of ground before we reached the tunnel.

The brightly colored market stalls, made of thin wood and cloth, had already disintegrated into sullenly glowing cinders. All of the houses around the square were ablaze, and the fire was crawling its steady and deadly way over the fallen timbers in the square. Only a small patch of open ground remained between us and the tunnel a and in that area was an Emorian soldier.

He was lying front-down on the ground as we arrived. Then he rose to his knees, his back to us, and brought his sword down hard on some object hidden from our view. After that, he remained where he was, kneeling and looking at the object.

John shouted in my ear; it was as good as a whisper in the fire-storm around us. "We"ll have to wait!"

"We can"t!" I said. "Look at the fire!"

As I spoke, a house not far from us collapsed into the street, crumbling like a flame-deadened log. John looked over his shoulder at it, and then at the soldier, who had risen to his feet but was still lingering over the object before him. Finally John said, "I"ll go first. If he doesn"t see me, he won"t see you, and if he sees me, it will give you time to get past him."

He had the look on his face that would accept no argument. Feeling bewildered that my plans to rescue him had gone awry, I let my gaze fall to the sheathed blade at John"s side.

As I raised my gaze upward once more, my eyes met John"s, and we stared at each other uncertainly. Then I used the one argument I knew John would accept: "It"s dedicated to the Unknowable G.o.d, as you are. You keep it, and the G.o.d will tell you what to do."

After a moment, John nodded; then he turned without a word and began running as close as he dared to the facade of fire along the row of houses. He did not look the soldier"s way, so I was the only one who saw the soldier raise his head as John darted by. I jammed my fists against my mouth, but before I had time to formulate a plan, the soldier turned his head away, clearly uninterested.

To me, the scene was like a note of victory on war trumpets. I pushed myself away from the house and began running the path John had taken, seeking to escape as quickly as I could from both the soldier and the agony of the fire"s touch. I tried to keep my eyes on John, who had nearly reached the ditch, but I did not have his steadiness of purpose, and as I pa.s.sed the soldier, I looked the Emorian"s way and saw what it was that he had been loitering over.

I caught only a quick glimpse of the woman, clothed in blood, before I cried, "No!" I did not think of what I was doing as I swerved my path; I was not sure whether I was headed toward the soldier or his victim. But as I came close to them both, the soldier reached out with his arms and pulled me captive against his chest.

I struggled, of course, but it was like a struggle I had once seen and had had nightmares about for weeks afterwards: a slave had defied the G.o.ds by using his voice and had been burned on a funeral pyre as punishment. Since he was one of the Living Dead, no effort had been made to kill his body before it was placed on the pyre, and so he had struggled in his funeral bindings as the flames approached him.

The soldier was growling words as I tried to break free of him. Under other circ.u.mstances, I would have considered this a fine lesson in Emorian curses. I tried to loosen the grip of his right hand a it had an old war-scar on it from thumb to index finger, and the hand was therefore awkwardly wrapped around his sword hilt. I managed only to swing our bodies in the direction I had been running, and in that moment, the soldier stopped swearing and I stopped struggling, for we had both seen what was running towards us.

Of course it was John, but he had a look on his face I had never seen before. His teeth were bared like that of a wild animal"s, and his mouth turned up at the corners like the edges of a crescent moon. A high, wailing battle cry emerged from his throat, rising above the sound of the fire, and his fingers were tight on the dagger he held upraised. But the oddest and most terrifying sight of all was his eyes: amidst the violence of the rest of his face, they were very, very calm.

I think that the eyes must have frightened even the soldier. I heard him mutter something which sounded like "G.o.d of Mercy" but which must have been some Emorian prayer of preservation. Then he thrust me aside, raised his sword, and brought it down upon John"s upraised face.

I saw the blade land a short distance away from John"s composed eyes. Then I closed my eyelids, and when I lifted them a moment later, John was lying on the ground, his mouth open and still, and his blood-soaked eyes staring as they had so often before, at nothing in this world.

The soldier was chalk-white as he stared down at John, though whether from remorse at what he had done or surprise that his a.s.sailant was so young I could not be sure. I did not give myself time to think about it. I hurtled myself at John"s dagger, fallen from his motionless hand, and then jumped up and whirled around, facing the unnerved soldier.

"I"m going to kill you," I said in Emorian, speaking in a voice that was not as steady as I would have liked. "I"m going to kill you and the Chara and all the Emorians. May the Jackal eat his dead-" And as my curse ended in a sob, I lunged forward.

The scene, like a tapestry upon a wall, was filled with images that froze in my mind: my mother, lying half-naked on the ground, still moist with blood and with the soldier"s fluids; John, resting only a few paces from the fire, which was advancing to eat its spoils; and the soldier, raising his sword above me in a motion that would reach me before I had time to use my dagger. I witnessed all this with a dark acceptance that was almost peaceful. Then, at the last moment, I saw the sword turn in the soldier"s hand so that the hilt was now pointed downward to strike my head. And as I realized with horror that the Emorian would deprive me even of this, the honor of dying with my blood brother, I opened my mouth and screamed- *

The dream ended then, as it always did, in the scream that travelled from the mouth of an eight-year-old boy to my own mouth, so that I woke from the sound of my cry. I was sitting upright in bed, trembling, and the sweat on my body was already beginning to chill in the cool Emorian morning.

I dropped my face into my hands, and as the moments pa.s.sed, I felt the pa.s.sionate lines of my face transform, without any effort on my part, into something different. When I raised my head again, I was wearing the mask of composure and detachment that no one in this land had ever seen me without, save one man.

Rising from my bed, my movements smooth and unhurried now, I walked over to a basin sitting on my mantelshelf and washed the sweat and tearstains from my face. The water ran over my hands and wrists, moistening, as it went, the white line of an old scar. I stepped back and caught a brief sight of myself in the small looking gla.s.s: my face was set in harshly rigid lines of dispa.s.sion, and my eyes were colder than dark ice. I was dark-haired, as any Koretian would be, but a Koretian man of twenty-three years would have had browner skin and would have been wearing a man"s beard. Nor would he have donned the Emorian tunic I reached for a few minutes later. The wool, finely woven though it was, would have been too heavy for a Koretian summer. A Koretian tunic, if decorated, would have had lines that branched together and sprang apart in random patterns, as though the lines were twigs intertwining in a tree. My own tunic had a simple symmetric pattern of straight lines. I had chosen the design myself.

Finished with my dressing, I opened the doors into the next chamber.

He was not there, but the evidence of his presence was. The room was in uncharacteristic disarray: cushions tossed from the reclining couch, law books pulled from their shelves, and items pushed around on his writing table. This was his sitting chamber, used as a place to relax in the evenings, and it was surrounded on all sides by doors. His sleeping chamber was to the left of where I stood, with the door to the corridor on my right. The door I had just stepped through had been cut only the previous summer, when I moved out of the small sleeping chamber opposite, which was reserved for his free-servant. Officially, he had a new free-servant, but in reality, I made sure he had no need of one.

I stepped forward and picked up the cushions, returned the books to their shelves, and stacked the papers neatly on the table. Then I reached up and pulled from his mantelshelf the scroll of paper from where I had seen him place it the night before.

I went back to the table, where I had noticed but not yet read the sheet of paper awaiting me. He had phrased it in formal language. I had never seen him write an informal letter, for such a message might be read by the wrong people and become a weapon against him, turning like a blade to cut his own hand. Though formal, the letter was written in a hurried fashion, without salutation or signature: Andrew son of Gideon, palace guest of the Chara, is summoned to appear in the presence of the Chara in the Map Room.

Beneath the message was a circular seal of red wax, imprinted with the royal emblem of the Chara.

I held the Chara"s letter in my hand for a moment more, and then left the chamber in order to meet with my master.

Blood Vow 2 LAND OF THE CHARA.

CHAPTER THREE.

As I stepped into the corridor that ran between the Map Room and the Court of Judgment, the Chara"s guards took no notice of me, frozen as they were on each side of the doorway I walked through. I turned right and began to make my way down the dimly lit pa.s.sage, its only illumination being the high clerestory windows. On each side of the corridor were rooms belonging to council lords, court officials, and palace guests. I knew that those rooms looked much the same as the Chara"s quarters, which would have been inconspicuous but for the guards.

I pa.s.sed lords as I walked, some of them nodding to me in greeting, others with their gazes on doc.u.ments that they read as they walked. I met the Chara"s court clerk, a young free-man struggling to keep a pile of papers in his arms. He nearly lost them all when he saw me and touched his heart and forehead with his fingers. I returned the gesture; it was one of the few Emorian customs that had come naturally to me, as it was of Koretian origin. Or so I had suggested one day to Lord Dean, High Lord of the Great Council of Emor, but he had maintained that the gesture derived from the Emorians" custom of placing their weapon-blades to their foreheads when they swore their oath of loyalty to the Chara. Whether in Emor or Koretia, the free-man"s greeting was meant to be exchanged, not between a master and his servant, but between equals.

I pa.s.sed by more open doors leading to rooms a the quarters of the Chara"s historian, the slave-quarters a and then I came to the quarters that belonged to the senior council lords. These rooms were generally silent at this time of the day, since the lords were busy elsewhere in the palace, working out the day-to-day details of running Emor, for which they were responsible. The quarters were silent now a all except one.

The girl"s cry was so piercing that, without thinking, I pushed my way through the door. The door opened only to a pa.s.sageway that led to further rooms, so I did not expect to see anyone. But I found myself facing Lord Carle, who was in the midst of disciplining his Koretian slave-girl.

The girl had fallen to her knees weeping. I could see the red mark on her cheek where Lord Carle had hit her. He was bent over her as I entered, and as he looked at me, I saw a fire spark in his eyes.

He barely managed to contain the fire in his voice. "What do you want?" he asked abruptly.

Having no good reason to be in his quarters, I said, "I apologize for disturbing you, Lord Carle. I was searching for the Chara; I thought he might be with you."

He stiffened up and a.s.sessed me for a moment, leaving the girl sobbing at his feet. Finally he said, "You ought to know where your master is. Why are you absent from him?"

Something about the crouching girl, whose presence the council lord was ignoring, caused me to say coolly, "Because, Lord Carle, I am not the Chara"s servant and so am not required to know his every movement."

Lord Carle stepped forward. As he did so, the girl stopped crying and began looking between her master and myself, as though she expected to witness a duel. Lord Carle stopped a few feet from me. Keeping his eyes fixed on mine, he said with malevolent softness, "If you are a loyal Emorian, Andrew, then you are his servant, as I am his servant and all Emorians are. If you do not believe this, then disobey the Chara"s commands again and see what follows."

I made no reply, and found a moment later that my gaze had drifted away from Lord Carle"s eyes. He turned away then, as though in disgust that he had wasted such a deep dagger-thrust on so unworthy an opponent. I took the opportunity to slip back to the corridor.

I stood there for a moment with my eyelids closed and my head tilted back, as though I had just emerged from red-hot fire. Then I walked the remaining distance to the Map Room.

This was at the direct end of the corridor. Its silver doors reached to the ceiling; standing on each side were two guards with their spears crossed in front of the doorway, in order to indicate that the Chara might not be disturbed on penalty of the high doom. As I came forward, they uncrossed the spears. Being less strictly trained than the Chara"s personal guards, they nodded me a greeting as I opened the doors and walked through.

The Map Room was not as large as the Court of Judgment, but it had a ceiling just as high, reaching up, it seemed, halfway to the clouds. The Chara used the scantily furnished room as a place to study military information and as a chamber in which to receive guests with formality but without full ceremony. On rare occasions, it was also used as a small Court of Judgment for cases that he tried in private. Like all Emorian rooms, it was dimly lit; the main illumination came from the hearth centered on the far wall. The hearth was now ablaze with fire in order to stave off the coolness of the Emorian summer morning.

The Chara was standing a few spear-lengths from me, looking out one of the southern windows. He was dressed formally with his silver tunic and his Sword of Vengeance; his cloak was tossed onto a chair nearby. He was only twenty-six, but his face had the look of an older man: severe responsibility had gouged deep rivers of age into his skin. As the door closed behind me, the Chara turned his head and said, "I was just wishing that I could wander over the black border mountains right now. It seems a shame to stay inside on a warm day like this." I made no reply, and he added, "I see that you brought the map. I couldn"t remember this morning where I had put it."

"So I surmised from the state of your sitting chamber, Chara," I said, coming forward and placing the map in his hand. "You ought to have woken me."

He turned and put the scroll down on the table nearby, which was already cluttered with a dozen maps. Without looking up, he said, "I thought that you might need the extra rest."

There was a pause as he unrolled the map and began examining it. I said, "I did not mean to disturb you, Chara. Perhaps I ought to sleep in other quarters."

"Don"t be foolish." He leaned over, traced a line on the map with his finger, then sighed and allowed the map to roll up once more as his gaze drifted back to the view at the window.

I followed his gaze toward the tiny slice of scenery. I could see a portion of the capital city surrounding the palace, a sliver of the river-threaded fields beyond, and a patch of Emorian sky a which, for a change, was blue and cloudless. Towering above them all were the black border mountains that separate Emor and Koretia.

The Chara said, "I seem not to be able to keep my mind off the mountains. Perhaps I have acquired some of your Koretian blood."

I said rigidly, "Chara, I am Emorian."

A smile crept onto his face then, erasing the lines of worry and making him appear even younger than he was. "That fact," he said, "had not escaped my notice. I was joking. Now stop being so stiff and formal and come sit with me."

He waved his hand toward two chairs sitting under a small patch of sunlight falling through one of the northern windows. I felt the seldom-used muscles of my mouth turn up, and I bowed in obedience, before seating myself where he had indicated.

He sat down beside me and pushed over a bowl that lay on the table between the two chairs. I fished out a couple of dried berries and, without looking to see what type they were, placed them in my mouth.

It took only two chews before I jerked my head around toward the Chara. "Peter! Where in the name of the dead Charas did you get these?"

The Chara Peter chuckled. "I wondered whether you would recognize them. The Koretian governor sent them to me. He said that Koretian food was not to most Emorians" taste a I take that to mean that he thinks it inedible. He added, though, that he knew of my interest in curious native customs, and he thought I might like to try these wild-berries. I did, and I think they"re inedible, and I would hand my dominions over to you if you would do me the favor of finishing them off."

"That won"t be a hard duty for me to undertake," I said. "As for Lord Alan, it sounds as though he has a gift for flattery."

"Yes, he reveals that most clearly in his letter." Peter reached over and picked up a sheaf of papers that was sitting next to the fruit bowl. "*To the Great Chara, Judge of the People, Commander of the ..." Well, he goes on with the usual half dozen, and even managed to sc.r.a.pe up a couple of t.i.tles that I had thought only my clerk knew. *Your servant Alan" a note the humility of leaving off his t.i.tle a *was most interested by your recent kind letter and does a.s.sure the Chara that my greatest wish is to answer any questions you might have on the Koretian people, and that the high doom itself would not prevent me from giving you the full story of all that is happening in this land. As you know, when I was appointed governor fifteen years ago by your father, the Chara Nicholas, I had little experience in high matters, and I continue to feel myself unworthy of such a task ..." He continues on like this for six pages, and by the end of them he has still failed to answer any of my questions. He signs the letter with all his t.i.tles, though he tactfully keeps them one short of the number he ascribed to me. So, since Lord Alan gives me no information, since nearly every spy I send to Koretia is either bribed by the governor or kept from gaining information, and since I am on this side of the black border mountains, I can find nothing that will help me to bring peace to that land."

Outside the windows, the palace trumpeters sounded the hour. I could hear the soft shuffle of soldiers" feet as the guard was changed in front of the Map Room door. I said, "Peter, if you wish me to tell you what I know of Koretia, you"ve only to ask."

He gave me a sober-eyed smile. "I didn"t wish to burden you in that way, but I fear that I must do so. The latest report from my spy a the only one who has managed to obtain useful information a is alarming. Could you help me sort out what these maps mean?"

I followed him over to the map-strewn table, where he unrolled again the map that I had brought him. "My father had this made during the Border Wars, a few months before the Koretian capital was captured," he said. "Can you tell me what everything is on it?"

I looked down at the black lines with occasional red splotches superimposed. "I imagine that you know as much about Koretia as I do. I was only eight years old when I left, and I hadn"t even visited the towns and villages until that time."

"Tell me what you know, even if I already know it. I"d like to learn how matters appear from a Koretian"s point of view." Before I could speak, he added, "You will not deny, I hope, that you once were Koretian."

I smiled and said, "No." Touching the yellowing paper with my finger, I said, "This is the capital city, built at the northern foot of the mountain that marks the southernmost border with Daxis. The mountain itself is uninhabited except for a priests" house, though it has a few ruins a and a cave."

I sensed rather than saw him smile. "I"m not likely to forget the cave. Where is the priests" house?"

"Here, about a mile up from the foot of the hill, and below the old house of worship, which the Koretians call the G.o.ds" house. n.o.body goes to the G.o.ds" house, but city dwellers sometimes visit the priests" house in order to see the rites. I doubt that I can tell you anything important about the city itself; it is all plainly labelled here on the map."

"Where did you live?" asked Peter.

I pointed. "Close to the market and not far from the old Koretian Council Hall, though I suppose the hall must have been destroyed by fire, as so much was."

Peter leaned over and placed his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his folded knuckles. "No, in fact it was the only large building to survive. The governor incorporated it into his palace. I think he liked the idea of living where royalty used to live a am I right in remembering that the Koretian King made the hall his home?"

"I told you that you know as much about Koretia as I do."

"I don"t know enough about its governor-"

"Neither do I," I cut in. "He was appointed the summer that I left Koretia."

"I know. But many Koretians were sent to my palace during those first few years after the wars. Did you ever hear them talking about Lord Alan?"

"Well," I said, "I wasn"t much interested during those years in listening to talk about Emor"s rule in Koretia. All that I remember hearing was that the governor was a tyrant and stole from his people a just like the Chara, the Koretians said."

Peter laughed. I pointed to the red patches and asked, "What are those?"

"Those," said Peter, leaning back, "are Emorian soldiers. The bigger the red area, the more units we had in that region. My father had about forty-two garrisons in the Koretian territory he cared for when this map was made. At the time of my enthronement, the number had gone down to eighteen. Here is a map I ordered drawn up recently." He pushed aside the old map in order to show the one under it. "What do you notice?"