Saltaja went to Therek and gripped his face between her hands, pulling his head down to her level. She froze him, and the terror in his eyes glazed over in a trance.
Once his mind had been as familiar to her as his face, but what she found in there now appalled her. Ruin!—like a house sliding into a swamp, an earthquake-shattered city ... walls cracked and tumbled, pillars leaning, fungoid weeds everywhere. Wrong, all of it; wrong! Indefinable things moved in the darker corners. The mangled state of Horold's wits had shocked her, but this was much worse. With shudders of distaste she began exploring and defining.
She prodded with a mental finger at a conspicuous suppurating abscess. 'Speak.'
'
No one else; no women anywhere, so far as she could see. Like Stralg, Therek had never formed attachments; would even a Nymph accept such a gargoyle now?
All wrong, all warped. She would need at least a thirty to sort this mess into some semblance of order, and then how long would it last? She couldn't even think of starting now, not up here, so high above cold earth. She was about to withdraw when she sensed a squirm, a brief twitch of avoidance. Here? No, here? There was something big, well obscured. The fear increased, pulsing darkly. She had to pry past walls, veils, barricades ... gently, or she would break things ... 'Who?'
Therek mumbled and slobbered.
Harder, then. '
Emotion burned in polychrome agony: 'Heth.'
That was a man's name. Karvak had been the chaser of boys, not Therek. She backed out until she was staring at the outside of his head once again, still clutching it. Drool hung from his lips. At some deep level he was struggling against the trance.
'Tell me who Heth is!' She used Dominance.
He moaned. 'Heth ... Hethson ...'
A bastard. So! She was annoyed that Therek had managed to keep a nephew secret from her, but it might not be too late to use him, depending on the kid's age. Shaping worked best on blood relatives. Xaran knew she was running out of those! The Heth boy could be no less promising material than Cutrath Horoldson. Tomorrow, when she got Therek down on ground level and began to work on him, she would find out who and where this by-blow was, and how old.
'When I release you, you will forget everything that has happened since the boy left.' She stepped back.
He jumped, pouted at her, and stalked off in a sulk, no doubt wondering what had caused that dizzy spell.
Saltaja found a stool and slumped down on it. Mother, she was tired! A day or two on the water did no harm, but that interminable voyage from Skjar had wearied her to the bone. Day in, day out, she missed the power of the cold earth. Sixty years ago she'd have thought nothing of it. She was growing old at last. Her control of events was slipping.
She saw now, in retrospect, that she had been too greedy. Twenty years ago, the Family had controlled the entire Vigaelian Face, with only sporadic rebellion left to quash—a hegemony unheard-of in all history. She should have been content with that, but she had let Stralg convince her that the horde would turn on itself if it had no external enemies to fight. She had let him invade Florengia. He had brought it to heel so easily that he had even started dreaming of expanding to the Ashurbian Face.
Ten years ago the Family had ruled two Faces, a sixth of the world, and Hrag's sons had bred another generation of warriors to hold the greatest inheritance Dodec had ever seen. Then Cavotti's mutiny had thrown cold reality in their faces.
And now? ... Now she might have to abandon Florengia and bring the survivors home to pacify Vigaelia. There were so few of Hrag's line left! Saltaja did not fear the dead, the least dangerous of people. She cared nothing for wraiths or ghosts or walking corpses, even if they existed, which she sometimes doubted. Yet she suspected that Hrag might be an exception, that even the Ancient One was not strong enough to hold him. Still, sometimes, she dreamed of the old monster—laughing at her, usually, and sending evil against his own seed so that they could not keep what he had dreamed of owning. But those were only dreams.
There was still hope. If the Celebre girl could Shape the pathetic Cutrath into a useful tool, that would help, and this Heth boy might help, too, if he was old enough.
'What other news from Stralg?' she asked.
Therek swung his vulture head around to peer across at her. 'He never tells me much. Nothing good. Nothing good that I believe, anyway. He's talking of fortifying Celebre, using it as his base.'
'When he's outnumbered two sixty to one!' the satrap screeched. 'The brownie Werists multiply like roaches but the extrinsics are worse! Werists fortify against extrinsics. That's why I built Nardalborg, you mad old hag.'
Was Stralg failing, too, like his brothers? She could demand to have his letters read to her, but the real news was waiting for her back in Skjar, all ancient now. Winter coming, the passes closing. Perhaps the news in the spring would be a Florengian horde arriving with Stralg's head on a pole.
Boots scuffed on the steps and Brarag burst in, sweaty and gasping from his run. He bowed low in the doorway. 'My lord is kind!'
'At ease, lad.' Therek whistled a laugh as if that were funny under the circumstances. 'Inform your packleader that you have been appointed attache to my sister.'
Brarag straightened up and eyed her apprehensively. 'My lady?'
