The women and the warlords coaaod-3 Read online

  If the Sisterhood investigated Yen Olass, she might be stripped of her powers as an oracle and put to work in the kitchens. At the very least, steps would be taken to ensure that she did live in the Woman Sanctuary from now on – and that in itself would be unbearable. Yen Olass hated the wetwater smell of the female quarters, the cloistering walls which encouraged the captive women to engage in feuds and jealousies; she remembered the meals of scange and rotten lanks, which sometimes stank like vomit.

  In her own quarters in Moon Stallion Strait, Yen Olass enjoyed many luxuries, and the finest was her privacy. There were no secrets in the Woman Sanctuary, that place where close-quartered women combined their body chemistry to make themselves one single animal, celebrating this mystery by menstruating in unison once in every moon.

  Seeing how much damage could be done if she continued to resist, Yen Olass went to the text-master Eldegen Terzanagel and promised to get the map for him; he instructed her accordingly.

  ***

  The War Archives was a relatively young institution; it had been established twenty years previously by Lord Pentalon Alagrace. Originally it had been a modest establishment devoted to the study of logistics, for Lord Alagrace believed that most campaigns were decided, to a large extent, by the degree to which logistical requirements could be satisfied.

  However, in twenty years the War Archives had grown considerably. Staffed mainly by past and present army officers, it had survived the Blood Purge intact, and had profited from the chaos which followed.

  It now controlled the previously independent House of Cartographers; it had taken over the Guild of Praise Singers; after a direct appeal to the Lord Emperor Khmar, it had even won permission to establish its own cadre of interrogators in direct competition with the traditional School of Executioners.

  Strong, confident and aggressive, the War Archives bureaucracy was now contending for one of the richest prizes of all: the regulation of Ordhar, the command language of the Collosnon Empire. Ordhar had been previously developed and administered by the text-masters,

  who bitterly resented the War Archives' effort to deprive them of their prestige, salaries, offices and assistants; the relentless infighting had now reached its peak, with the text-masters accusing the War Archives of complicity in the fire which had badly damaged the Pranzalstrud, the chief library of the text-masters.

  If the text-master Eldegen Terzanagel had gone anywhere near the War Archives complex now dominating King's Honour Crescent – only four years old, that complex contained the finest architecture in all of Gendormargensis – then the consequences of such a foolish move would quite possibly have been the immediate and permanent disappearance of the said text-master. However, nobody challenged Yen Olass as she passed through the portal giving access to the complex. Nobody would ever challenge an oracle, or even think of doing so.

  On her way to the map room, Yen Olass walked down wide corridors where floors and walls were decorated with mosaics in the Drayling Style, which depends for its effects on the interweaving of different seasons, blending pools of fruited sunlight with frozen ponds, banks of burning autumn with snowdrifts and youngbud trees. She knew the way; she had visited the War Archives often enough before, when summoned by Lord Alagrace or some other worthy.

  To get to the map room, she had to pass outside the Naquotal Conference Room; it must have been in use, for in the wide corridor outside there were bodyguards and other retainers lounging against the walls or seated on wooden benches. A number of edged weapons, banned from the Conference Room, were stacked up against one wall.

  As Yen Olass drew near, a man moved to intercept her; inwardly, Yen Olass quailed, fearing discovery, yet she maintained her poise.

  The man was Karahaj Nan Nulador, General Chonjara's bodyguard; he dropped down on one knee, as he had in the Enskandalon Square.

  'Peace for your daylight,' said Yen Olass, blessing him.

  'Whom do you read for today?' said Nan Nulador.

  Again Yen Olass was panic-stricken. She could hardly answer 'nobody'; on the other hand, if she named any particular individual, it was entirely possible that person might be inside the Conference Room, in which case it would look very odd if she failed to stay and wait for them.

  'A reading has just been concluded,' said Yen Olass, finding the way out of her difficulties.

  'Then… please.’

  Nan Nulador gestured at the door to a side room. He was asking for a reading! And now Yen Olass was really in trouble, for her laquered box, which should have contained her Casting Board and her 365 Indicators, was entirely empty – she planned to use it to carry away the map she intended to steal.

  'An oracle does not refuse a patron.’

  So ran the Rule.

  And the assembled bodyguards and retainers, bored, idle, watching and listening, would be sure to note any refusal, however she phrased it. Mutely, Yen Olass walked into the side room; Nan Nulador closed the door, and they were alone.

  The room was a bare box of stone, generously lit by a series of tall, narrow windows which admitted a draught of ice-cold air. Yen Olass walked to the windows, wondering if she could drop her empty nordigin out of a window; she looked down and saw an empty courtyard below. If she managed to slip and fall and drop her carrier box, the first thing Nan Nulador would do would be to run down to that courtyard to rescue it. And he would find it empty.

  Yen Olass turned and faced her danger.

  'You want a reading,' said Yen Olass. 'Where does the conflict lie?’

  'With my wife,' said Nan Nulador. 'It was… there was… there was one child born dead. Then another. Both my sons, born dead. I have to know. Has someone put a curse on her. Or is she-’

  'Do not name it,' said Yen Olass sharply, knowing what the next word would be. 'Is she a dralkosh?’

  There. It was out. It had been said. And Nan Nulador stood trembling, waiting, frightened by the accusation he had made against his wife – for nobody suggests that a woman may be a dralkosh unless they believe she is – yet eager to know the answer, to know the truth, to have it settled.

  'Dralkosh,' said Yen Olass, repeating the word Nan Nulador had spoken.

  It was an ugly word, denoting a woman who drew power from a liaison with the dead. It was a matter of record that every woman with a legitimate claim to the title had long ago fled into exile with the Witchlord Onosh Gulkan and his chief dralkosh Bao Gahai. Nevertheless, in any given year, in the city of Gendormargensis at least a dozen women were named as 'dralkosh', and stoned to death.

  'Is she?' said Nan Nulador. 'Aren't you going to do a reading?’

  And now there was more at stake than the discovery that Yen Olass had brought an empty carrier box into the precincts of Karling Drask. A woman's life was at stake.

  'We will discover the truth for you,' said Yen Olass, with a serene confidence she did not actually feel. 'But a reading may not be the best way. Tell me: what did you dream of last night?’

  'I don't dream,' said Nan Nulador stolidly.

  So much for that idea.

  In fact, as Yen Olass knew very well, all human beings dream, for like all other god-created creatures they partake of the nature of gods, and the function of dreams is to allow even the humblest of all animals to create freely, as the gods themselves do. But if Nan Nulador refused to remember his dreams, Yen Olass could hardly interpret them for him. Yet she had to find some way to satisfy him without opening her carrier box.

  'You will dream tonight,'.said Yen Olass, her voice clear and penetrating, two parts of desperation to one part of calculation – a very powerful recipe.

  'You say-’

  'Believe me,' said Yen Olass. And Nan Nulador did.

  So it was that Yen Olass ventured into the territory of the Sura Woman, the sly-voiced old crone whom the traveller will find reading fortunes, interpreting dreams and selling charms in any market in the lands round Gendormargensis.

  'But you need a dream now,' said Yen Olass, 'So I will tell you one
. This is a dream which I have from the inner air, by a method which may not be revealed.’

  She was venturing further and further into occult territory, knowing full well what a scandal this would cause if the Sisterhood came to hear of it. The Sisterhood, drawing on the histories of other places, other times, knew that the development of the Collosnon Empire would lead it to discard the traditions of the past; for the time being, the Sisterhood would operate with the paraphernalia of Casting Board and Indicators, but the order planned in due course to abandon these trappings of superstition, and to work frankly as a Guild of Arbitrators.

  Yen Olass, by claiming to create a dream, was laying claim to paranormal powers in a way the Sisterhood could never countenance; as Nan Nulador settled himself at her feet, listening in wide-eyed fascination like a child hearing some tale of dwarfs and dragon-slaying heroes, it was clear that this hulking fighting man was convinced that magic was being worked for his benefit.

  'A dream,' said Yen Olass. 'A rabbit. Snow. No skin. Rabbit with no skin. Cries. Rabbit cries. A woman comes. She loves. Picks up the rabbit. Comforts it. A woman's nature. A rabbit. A child. This is the snow falling. You will remember. As she comforts, fur. Grows. Rabbit grows fur. Is comforted.’

  And spinning out this spiel, Yen Olass dropped her voice, speaking in a lower tone for certain key phrases: she loves, a child, you will remember.

  In Monogail, Yen Olass had learnt certain disciplines from her mother, who had been a powerful healer of minds, and had instructed her from the earliest age. She was now making use of that training.

  Spinning her spiel, Yen Olass slid a stream of words into Nan Nulador's mind; as they were very close to nonsense, he resisted none of them; as he sat there following the story of the rabbit saved from the snow, Yen Olass infiltrated his mind with a message given segment by segment, each segment marked out for the attention of his 'menthout', his peripheral mind, that part of the mind which monitors all the things happening outside the tiny area on which operational consciousness, 'yokthout', is actually focused.

  'Those two then,' said Yen Olass. 'Close together in the snow. All around. The rabbit knows to sleep with her. Yet is it enough? More snow falls. Surely to cover her. But what is this? A feather. Falling. The snow is feathers. All the world is falling with feathers. Enough.

  'The woman waits. Downfalling feathers. Time. The feathers are warm. Night comes. The woman is warm. Sooner or later, there will be dawn. Sunlight. Birdwine pouring. Mother bird and child. Yes. An outlook of sun-1'ght.’

  Bit by bit, marking each part of her message with that drop in tone, Yen Olass gave him his orders, thus: sleep with her, sooner or later, child.

  Her story ran on, telling of how the woman and the rabbit survived the feather snow, went on a journey, found a house, and-

  'But how it ends, I don't know,' said Yen Olass. 'That's all the dream I remember. When you dream you will know more than you know now, and more than I can tell you.’

  And with those final words, she slipped in the final command to pull all those carefully marked phrases together, and make them one message: remember when you dream.

  Would it work?

  The chances were good. If Nan Nulador had wanted to dispose of his wife, he would already have named her as a dralkosh, and she would already be dead. So, despite the fact that she had given him two dead children, he wanted her to live.

  The door opened; General Chonjara entered the room. 'What's this?' said Chonjara.

  'We've just concluded a reading,' said Yen Olass coolly.

  Chonjara grunted; Nan Nulador rose to his feet, and made reverence to Yen Olass, this time using not a simple hand gesture, but a more elaborate and courtly form, thus: the right fist, clenched to the chest at heart-height, rolls open as the arm sweeps down, fist flowering into fingers as the upper half of the body bows forward.

  'Come on,' said Chonjara, and Nan Nulador followed him out of the room.

  Yen Olass stretched, easing the tension from her muscles, easing the tension from her bones. She picked up her empty carrier box. Outside, in the corridor, there was the sound of voices and footsteps, a clatter as a bench was pushed back against a wall. The Naquotal Conference Room was emptying.

  Yen Olass waited till the corridor was quiet, then she resumed her journey.

  ***

  The map was some thousands of years old. If chance favours them, vellum, parchment and papyrus will outlast the centuries, but cannot be expected to do so without suffering the insults of time; this map, on the other hand, was as clear and bright as if it had been made yesterday. However, there was no mystery in this, for it was made of twenty-five ceramic tiles, and its colours were high-temperature glazes. It is often the weakest things which outlast the cities of power: clay and poetry.

  The map showed the Far South and the Deep South, the Stepping Stone Islands and the Inner Waters; in the lands south of the Inner Waters, within territory now commanded by the monsters of the Swarms, the map showed roads and cities. This map had been in the possession of the Sanctuary of Gendormargensis for centuries before the arrival of the horse tribes; however, during the Blood Purge, the Sanctuary had been destroyed, and its treasures had gone to the War Archives.

  Not that the Archives had any use for the map – even the Collosnon Empire was not likely to match its strength against the Swarms, and, besides, the map was long out of date. However, on the strength of possessing 27,542 maps – nearly all of them useless – the War Archives had recently been able to acquire funding for another seven map curators.

  Despite the number of people who derived their income from looking after maps, nobody appeared to be on duty when Yen Olass entered the map room; as the Ceramics Section held only a handful of maps, Yen Olass found what she was looking for without any trouble at all; she packed the twenty-five tiles into her carrier box, and left the map room.

  She had not gone very far before she heard a bellow of anger:

  'You!’

  Shocked, she wheeled – and saw only an empty corridor behind her. But she knew who had shouted: General Chonjara. So she was discovered. 'How dare vou! Whore! I'll kill you!’

  Yen Olass began to run.

  She fled down the corridor, slid round a corner, and crashed into a squad of soldiers, who were running toward the shouting.

  'What's this?' said one, grabbing her.

  'Unhand me!' shouted Yen Olass.

  At any other time, the outrage of an oracle would have led to her immediate release. However, in view of the shouts and screams now coming down the corridor – and one of the screams was that of a woman – the soldier was not going to release anyone caught fleeing from the scene.

  'Come,' said the soldier.

  And Yen Olass, surrendering when he started to hurt her, was hustled down the corridor. The uproar grew louder. Rounding a corner, they came upon a most extraordinary sight. The Lord Commander of the Imperial City of Gendormargensis, Volaine Persaga Haveros, was fighting with General Chonjara. Haveros was stark naked; Chonjara was fully dressed. They were on the ground, wrestling, each seeking a stranglehold. The Princess Quenerain, also stark naked, was trying to demolish Chonjara's bodyguard with a chair; unwilling to damage the head of the Rite of Purification, Karahaj Nan Nulador was doing no more than defending himself.

  'Break!' shouted one of the soldiers.

  The combatants paid no attention, so the newcomers intervened. One of them made the mistake of grabbing the Princess Quenerain by the hair; appalled that anyone should manhandle such a sacred person, Nan Nulador went to her aid. He snatched up one of the lighter soldiers and began to batter the others with this convenient weapon.

  More soldiers arrived. Seeing the brawl, they pitched in, choosing sides at random. Yen Olass was released as her captor waded into the fray. She fled – and was stiff-armed by a short-sighted street-fighter, the veteran of a thousand tavern fights. She sat down suddenly, the breath knocked out of her. A man landed on top of her. Someone kicked for his head.
Yen Olass fought free, grabbed for her carrier box – and swore as someone kicked it and it burst open.

  Sheltering the tiles with her body, as she might have sheltered a child from a herd of stampeding horses, Yen Olass jammed them back into her carrier box. Some were intact, others in pieces; she did her best, then closed the box.

  General Chonjara, torn away from Haveros, struggled to his feet and shouted for order, raising his voice above the raucous shouts of battle-drunk soldiers. The Princess Quenerain hit him with a chair, and he went down.

  Someone sat on him. Seizing her opportunity, Yen Olass bit him on the ankle, getting a good grip and sinking her teeth deep into the general's flesh. He kicked her in the head.

  Yen Olass was knocked backwards. A soldier grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, dragged her to her feet and drew back his fist to slug her – but Yen Olass smashed him in the jaw, and he went down. The women of Monogail were a sturdy breed. She grabbed her carrier box, and, seeing a break in the scrum, she lowered her head and charged.

  A man got in her way, but Yen Olass won through to freedom; the man woke up later in the day with a sore head and a vague memory of losing an argument with a stone wall.

  ***

  Lord Pentalon Alagrace, Lawmaker in Gendormargensis during the absence of the Lord Emperor Khmar, did his best. Those soldiers who had been found unconscious, disabled or too badly damaged to hide were flogged in public, each getting twenty lashes. The Resident Commander of Karling Drask, the War Archives complex, was demoted for failing to maintain good discipline. For good measure, all the soldiers working in Karling Drask were confined to barracks for sixty days.

  That left Lord Alagrace with four people to deal with: the Princess Quenerain, Volaine Haveros, General Chonjara and Karahaj Nan Nulador. Lord Alagrace excused Nan Nulador from punishment; bodyguards are chosen for loyalty and fighting ability rather than discrimination, and it would have set a dangerous precedent to have brought sanctions against a bodyguard who had fulfilled his obligations by fighting alongside his lord.