Elemental Logic - Fire Logic Part 18

Zanja lay paralyzed in a blood-stained hay cart. At a distant mountain peak, the moon lifted her pale face to the starry sky. Except for the occasional calls of the soldiers on watch duty, the Sainnite camp lay silent. Zanja watched the sky, able only to wait, now that all choices had been taken away from her.

A slight sound made her turn her head, and a slim shadow separated from the darkness: lithe and silent, grinning teeth s.h.i.+ning with moonlight. "Oh my brother," she breathed. "Why do you risk your life for me?

I am already dead, but you can still live."

He came to her, though, silently laughing his raven's laugh. "You trickster," she said. "You have come to take my life in mercy at last."

Yes. His blade was in his hand. She smiled at him, her courageous friend. "Come, then," she said. And then a Samnite uttered a warning shout, and they rose up and killed him.

It had happened again. It would happen again, again, and again, while she lay hopelessly screaming, and Ransel's st.u.r.dy heart pumped his lifeblood onto the ground. Over and over, he came to deliver the mercy blow, and over and over they killed him.

A heavy door grated open. There was a terrible blaze of light and a flapping shadow, like a big bird's wings. "Come out of there," Willis said.

"She's been unusually quiet the last few hours," another voice said doubtfully.

Emil's voice, low and quiet, said, "She has been shouting and you left her unattended? She has a serious injury!"

For Emil, quiet meant angry, angry almost beyond speech. "I'm going in after her," he said. But Zanja had managed to get to her feet by then, and shakily walked into the light. Emil was just a shadow she could see even with her eyes closed, and surely she was no more than a shadow to him, a being of the Underworld, a house habitated by memory.

"Give me your hand," he said.He should not be merciful to her, or he would die. But she took the hand he reached down to her, and let him haul her out of the darkness, into the dusty, milling chaos of a hot and sunny farmyard.

Through a blaze of tears brought on by sunlight, she saw farmers in their summertime work clothes, come to see who had been locked in their cellar and why. She saw each of Emil's lieutenants, who had never, even at a funeral, seemed so grim. She saw many other Paladins, some who had jeered at her, some who might eventually have become her friends. All of them stared at her, and at the dignified man she'd had the temerity to call her brother, not so long ago.

His rage was masked, but she felt it like knife on bone. "You have made friends with a Sainnite," he said.

She knew what she had to do. "Yes, sir."

"And you went out the other night to meet this person?"

"Yes, I did."

"What for?"

This time, he would not die. He would not help her as his enemies lay in wait. Better for him to hate her than to die because of her. She said, "I went to lead an attack on Willis's unit, but they said they were not ready."

His hand rested on his pistol. This close to her, he would get a good shot, and even in anger would shoot well, kindly, remembering his affection even as he knew it was betrayed. But then he sighed, and all was lost. "I know that is a lie," he said.

A voice spoke behind Zanja. "She intends her lie as a gift."

Zanja did not have to turn to know who had spoken. A black shadow flapped upon the ground in front of her. Her frail courage faltered.

Emil said, his voice still soft with anger, "A misguided gift."

Zanja said, "Sir, it is my calling to transgress, but it is my duty to cause no harm by that transgression. Let me do my duty."

Emil gazed into her eyes, expressionless, unblinking. And then he turned away, to speak to his lieutenants. "This matter will not turn out the way any of us might expect. It seems ill-advised to do this so publicly, when so much damage already has been done to our community."

Willis said, "No," as though he already was the commander. This was, certainly, his spectacle.

Emil smiled oddly, without amus.e.m.e.nt. "Well then, at least let's get into the shade, for courtesy to our guest." He gestured toward an arbor of flowering vines, where there were some inviting benches in the shade.

Zanja turned then, and looked into the scarred, sun-browned face of Norina Truthken. "What are you doing here? It is not your business."

Norina said, "Who did you think would come?"

Though Zanja had lived with her until four months ago, she'd had no idea that Norina was pregnant. Even the heavy clothing of winter could not have concealed it now. Though her dust-stained clothing and red-rimmed eyes suggested a heroic journey had brought her here so quickly, her jutting belly hinted thatat any moment she might deliver a child. Just the thought of her as a mother made Zanja's head hurt.

Karis's raven rode upon her shoulder. It was a most uncanny sight.

Zanja could barely walk the short distance to the arbor. The bullet wound in her leg had not healed at all as she lay helpless in the Underworld. At least she could escape the sun and sit upon a bench, though everyone else except Norina remained standing. A man-at-arms stood beside Norina, bristling with weapons like a brigand.

Willis began, "I found Zanja's bed empty shortly after dark, and-"

Emil said, "I know what happened, Willis."

"But the Truthken-"

"If Madam Truthken wishes to know something, she may ask."

The watchfulness of Norina's gaze, and the black bird on her shoulder, hardly seemed calculated to set anyone at ease. She said, "Lieutenant-Willis is your name?"

Willis jumped, and Zanja felt something, the faintest p.r.i.c.kle of antic.i.p.ation. "Madam Truthken," he said belligerently.

"You have not told the truth."

"I am not lying! Anyone who was there will confirm-"

"You wanted Zanja dead, and were desperate for an excuse. That is what you have not said."

His face went white, but his chin came up. "I admit I had my men abandon her in a firefight. But I did that because I knew she was a traitor, and Emil would not see it, just as he will not see it now. I did it to save the company."

Norina gazed at him, expressionless. "So you named yourself commander."

Dazzled and bewildered by the vivid s.h.i.+ne of truth in the midst of this nightmare, Zanja said, "He acted under Mabin's command."

She heard the faintest sound from Emil: a grunt of pain or surprise.

Norina's gaze on Willis's face never wavered. "She says the truth?"

"Yes," Willis said, with more apparent pride than fear.

Norina blinked, once, and turned to Emil.

Emil said in a strangled voice, "What did she offer you?"

But Willis, seeming to think he had the upper hand, said loftily, "That's between me and the councilor."

The b.l.o.o.d.y fool would get command of South Hill Company. Zanja could feel no more horror; the betrayals had acc.u.mulated until she hardly noticed them. But the look on Emil's face was worse than her own pain.

Norina stood up. "Commander, I need to speak to you alone."They stepped aside. The five lieutenants, two of whom Zanja scarcely knew, shuffled their feet and muttered to each other. The man-at-arms stood stolid as a plowhorse, but his gaze never ceased to flick from one person to the next. Zanja ached in every part of her body. She felt her face with her fingers, to find her eyelids swollen, her lip split, her cheekbone raw and bruised. Her leg hurt with a dull and insinuating pain. She kept forgetting where she was, and the faces of the lieutenants and the observers kept changing, from Paladin to Sainnite to Ashawala'i.

Norina and Emil returned. Emil said somberly, "I will communicate with Mabin on what to do with you, Willis, but meanwhile you are relieved of duty."

Willis's face turned red with anger. "And the traitor? You'll let her go unpunished, of course!"

"We have not yet addressed the problem of Zanja," said Emil evenly. "But I have relevant information that I doubt any of you have yet heard. The Shaftali prisoners were set free from Wilton garrison last night. Some of those from Annis's family came direct to me and told me about how they'd been freed by a Sainnite man, who unlocked the doors and escorted them safely out of the garrison and out of the city itself, all under cover of darkness."

"A Sainnite?" repeated Willis in disbelief.

"Yes. In fact, the freed prisoners carried a letter to me from him." Emil turned to Zanja. "What did you tell this Medric, the night Willis found your bed empty?"

Zanja said, though it took a great effort, "I never saw him that night."

Emil glanced at Norina. "Madam Truthken?"

"Truth," Norina said.

"What were you intending to tell him?"

"I was going to bring him to you, to have you meet him."

"Truth," Norina said.

"Why?"

"He wanted to join the Paladins."

Norina said, "I can't judge the truth of hearsay."

"Ah, yes. But Zanja believes what he told her to be true?"

"I can't be certain, Commander. She wants it to be true, but for this very reason she does not trust her judgment-and for other reasons as well," Norma added, as though she were reading words being written as she spoke. "I think she is unbalanced. How long has it been since she ate, or drank?"

"Just two days," Willis said defensively. "Maybe three."

"Wounded and bleeding. And your man says he heard her screaming."

"What matter? She's a traitor!"

"You believe that she's a traitor," Norina corrected him. "The truth, however, has yet to be determined, and cannot be determined when she is scarcely even in her right mind. Commander, I am here for myown reasons, but since you have asked me to arbitrate I must insist that you at least get her some water."

Emil sent someone for water, and while that was being brought, Norina took a cloth bag out of the pocket of her doublet and tossed it to Zanja. It contained some kind of old dried fruit, gone hard as rawhide and practically as tasteless. Zanja held a piece in her mouth, and as it softened and dissolved a sudden clarity came to her: enough at least for her to realize how weak she was, how worn out with despair and horror. With the second piece the pain in her leg was eased, and with the third she sat erect and pushed some loose strands of hair from her face, and thanked the girl who had brought a dipper of water for her.

She said, "I met Medric on Fire Night. And though I was and am still half afraid that he might be engaged in some kind of elaborate trick, I took the risk of talking to him, because I thought the benefits could be great. It's he who told me that the Sainnites were going to attack us at Fen Overlook."

There certainly were some huge gaps in this story she'd told, but Emil at least seemed able to fill them in.

He glanced at Norina, who said, "Clearly the truth."

"What have you told him in return?" Emil asked.

"He asked only to meet you, Emil, and I told him nothing."

"Truth," Norina said.

Willis exploded. "What does it matter! She spoke to a Sainnite! She did it in secret!"

There was still something Zanja might do. She said, "Medric is a better man than you, Willis."

Norina said, "Zanja, be quiet."

"He said he would prove his trustworthiness to me, and he has proven it. Meanwhile, you have proven that nothing matters to you but your own ambition."

Norina said, "Silence her!"

But Zanja cried, "There is just one traitor here, Madam Truthken!"

With all her strength, she flung herself at Emil's weak knee, and he toppled like a rotten tree at exactly the moment of the pistol blast.

Zanja lay across him, gasping, terrified that she might have flung him into the line of fire rather than away from it. Then, Emil raised a hand and gently laid it on the back of her head. "Quite a display of prescience. What in Shaftal's name do you think you're doing?"

She said, for his ears only, "That man just guaranteed that he would never command South Hill Company."

His chest heaved: was he laughing? She could not tell, he was otherwise so solemn. "Careful!" Linde had rushed over and seemed ready to disentangle them by flinging Zanja wildly out of the way. "Calm down, Linde, I'm not hurt. But she already was injured and it's only worse now."

Linde lifted Zanja and set her on the bench, then helped his commander to his feet. Linde's face was white with shock, but not so white as Willis's, who half stood and half hung within the grips of the other lieutenant and Norina's man-at-arms. "I did not aim at Emil," he said desperately to Norina, who had not moved from where she sat, and if anything seemed uninterested in the chaos before her. "I would nevershoot my commander! It was her, the traitor-I lost my temper, is all!"

Emil walked over to him and hit him, a contemptuous blow that scarcely left a mark on Willis's face, but silenced him effectively enough. Across the yard, that contemptuous blow registered in the faces of a dozen or more people, who although they had not heard what was said, surely could read the language of the scene, like any other staged drama.

"And you think that a man who cannot command himself can command a whole company?" He added, "Madam Truthken, is there a traitor here?"

Zanja felt so strange, so empty, so tired, that she wondered how she could still be present in this strange place. Norina said, "Zanja has merely exercised a fire blood's usual foolhardiness. As for Willis, it is most ambiguous. Willis meant to shoot Zanja, but he meant it as a blow to you. So in the eyes of the law, perhaps it might be argued that you were his true target. In any case, I would refuse to hear him as Zanja's accuser, for he only loves the justice that serves his interests, and only sees the Law as a tool to achieve his desires. He is untrustworthy, but technically he is not a traitor."

"Let Willis go," Emil said. Willis was released. "Get out of my sight," Emil added. "And get out of my company. If you want to complain to Councilor Mabin, you are free to do so. The rest of you, please step away. I wish to talk to the Truthken alone."

Reluctantly, they left. Emil sat heavily on the bench beside Zanja. "This is a fine mess!"

Across the green, Willis had already reached his people, and no doubt he quickly began to explain his version of what they had seen. But they stood back, apparently uncertain whether they wanted to be known to be his supporters any longer.

Norina said quietly, "Shall I leave?"

"If you don't mind, Truthken, I think it best that I avoid the appearance of conspiring with Zanja and so it would be most useful to me if you remain." Emil folded his hand and rested his forehead upon them in an att.i.tude of utter weariness. "Zanja-You and I are at cross-purposes, of course. I am much more interested in saving your life than I am in saving my position. At the same time, you are trying to save my position and seem little interested in saving your life."

Zanja said, "My brother, you have died for me a hundred times. I could not endure it anymore."

Ransel looked at her blankly.

"Don't be a fool," Zanja implored him. "Every time you try to help me, you die. Do not burden me with the terrible memory, I beg you! If you do not die, you cannot blame me for failing to avenge you."