Children of Chaos

'I will fight the Florengians because I am true to the Fist!' If they would just let him, just trust him!

'Why?' the seer asked. 'Stralg has murdered and pillaged and shattered your homeland. Do you know why? You know what started the war?'

'What does it matter? If they had submitted to the rule of the Heroes as they should, they would not have been hurt.'

'Tell him, Bena.'

'Tell him what?' the artist growled, still frowning.

'Tell him why Stralg invaded the Florengian Face.'

Muscleman shrugged. 'Because he had too many men. In his struggle to conquer Vigaelia he'd built the cult up too big. With no one left to fight, they'd just start fighting one another. So he took half of them over the Edge to get them killed off.'

Orlad laughed. 'He told you this, I suppose?'

'He told his sister-in-law,' Benard said absently. 'She told me.' He turned to stare again at the seer.

'Don't believe you.'

No one answered. Somehow the mood of the room had changed.

'Stop that!' the Witness shouted, raising her distaff threateningly.

'Stop what?' Benard took a step toward her, looking puzzled.

'Stop it!' she shrieked.

'I know you!'

'No you don't! How could you?' She tried to strike at him with her distaff.

Parrying the blow easily, he reached out and ripped away her veil.

forty

BENARD CELEBRE

had sensed something wrong about Witness Mist when they first met in the Bull Concourse in Kosord. The feeling had returned this morning, even stronger, when they met again here in Tryfors. It had been growing on him all day. At last he sent a prayer to Anziel that She let him see through the veil, and he had discovered a maddeningly familiar face. So he unmasked her...

Him.

He thought for a heart-stopping moment that he was face-to-face with holy Eriander—Eriander as he had shown Her in Ingeld's mural and Hiddi's idol. The coloring was wrong, of course, and the ghastly cropped ears; he had caught the straight nose, the wavy hair, and the pointed chin very well. But the real horror was the hideous de-sexing mutilation.

'I thought you were dead!' He had modeled the god as a youth of indeterminate sex, but the features were those of his older brother—who should not look like that now, nor sound like that, either. 'Oh, Dantio, Dantio! What did they do to you? And what have I just done to you?'

Heartsick, Benard grabbed the Witness in both arms and hugged him as tight as he could. Dantio gasped, tried to break loose, then submitted to the inevitable, hard-put even to breathe in a grip so ferocious.

'How very touching!' said the Werist. 'What exactly is that?'

'Don't you sneer, you stupid thug!' Fabia yelled. 'Dantio? Really?'

Benard let go and stared at him. Dantio nodded. His eyes were tight shut, his mouth twisted in a rictus of pain. He spun around and hid his face against the wall.

Benard thought, Brute, callous brute! How could I have been so insanely cruel?

It seemed an age before the seer spoke, in a whisper choked with emotion. 'Yes, really. You can guess what they did to me, Benard.'

Beardless, sexless features, treble voice. Benard glanced at his other brother, the brute killer, and thought, I was the lucky one.

Dantio said, 'There are other eunuchs in the... in the cult... We don't make them, but we take them in.'

Fabia went to put her arms around him. 'I thought you witnessed that Dantio died?'

'I did,' the seer told the plaster. 'I was going to tell you, truly I was. I wanted to get this all settled first.'

Shamefaced, Benard scooped up the veil he had dropped, offered it. Dantio took it without looking around and covered his head again.

'I do think,' Orlad sneered, 'my duty requires me to warn my liege lord that the Celebre hostages are loose and dangerous. They may even gang up on him! An artist, a girl, and a gelding! He will be terrified.'

Fists clenched, Benard strode over. 'Shut your foul face!'

'Or what, brother?' Orlad said softly, eyes gleaming.

Caution cooled Benard's rage. Any Werist thug would relish a brawl after an emotional beating like the one Dantio had just administered. This young monster had obviously fought his share and more in the past; dangerous