CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - THE NUNNERY

Loth Kavnor had withstood the supernal might of the Kraagish Northlord and the fury of his mortal armies; the dam's defenders had stood out the dreadful night of battle, bloodying their bowstrings with the speed of their arrows to throw back the vast horde of Kraag and Goro that had come against them.

Dawn was approaching by the time the last of the bodies had been cleared away, the fallen of the clan interred in the catacombs below the Loth while the enemies' remains were unceremoniously flung from the walls.

While the mournful music of the pipes echoed off the valley walls and the work of tending to the wounded began, the Inquisitrix prepared two horses to ride. Sorcha assisted the Inquisitrix in silence, hurrying to pre-empt any instruction and looking ever and again towards the stable door and the ramparts of the dam beyond.

“You've nothing to fear from Iaran while you ride with me,” the Inquisitrix said as she mounted her horse. “Or was it someone else you were afeared of? Young Montesinos... or Odacon?”

“Both,” Sorcha confessed, and the Inquisitrix tutted and beckoned her to mount.

“They're both dead. Ghosts and demons, girl; we've nothing to fear from them. Have you truly given your life to Iaran?”

“Yes.” Sorcha bowed her head. “I see now that being taken by the Naril wasn't my fault, and I can't blame myself for that, but that everything afterward happened because I chose or allowed it to happen; suicide was always an option, but I was stronger than that, so I'm strong enough to earn Iaran's forgiveness for anything I've done.”

“Good. So long as you understand that your strength will be tested; if you have lied to me once, you will have to lie again and again. Eventually your lies will betray themselves; until then you are a novice of the Silvanni order, your sins have been forgiven and you are pure in Iaran's sight.”

“I don't want my family to see me,” Sorcha said as she mounted her horse. The habit of a Silvanni nun was very heavy compared to silken Kellion clothes. “I don't deserve to leave quietly, but I'm glad we can go tonight.”

“It is better this way; it is not punishment you need, Sorcha, but rehabilitation.”

They rode out from Loth Kavnor by the south gate and skirted the wide margins of the reservoir before taking the little-used mountain track into the Baltu range that would eventually bring them to the Abbey. They rode until midnight, when the moon passed behind the peak of Mount Karonan and the darkness became complete.

Making camp was difficult in the dark, further hampered by the light rain and the rough terrain. The Inquisitrix chose a spot where she had often camped before on her rounds of the province, a sheltered gulley where their firelight would not show and there was some protection from the rain. Sorcha and the Inquisitrix sat on opposite sides of the campfire, their backs to the gully walls and the horses tethered at the open end of the sheltered nook.

The Inquisitrix said grace before they ate, and they hardly spoke again before settling to sleep. Sorcha was just about to roll up in her blanket when she felt the cold glare of the Inquisitrix on the back of her neck. She looked around in question to find the Inquisitrix looking back at her, kneeling beside her bedroll with her sword drawn and her hands clasped atop the hilt.

“Say your prayers,” the Inquisitrix told Sorcha, then bowed her head and closed her eyes.

Sorcha knelt, composed her hands, and tried to remember how to pray. She had seen no proof of Iaran's divinity; quite the contrary, having ridden with the woman who had slain the Silvan goddess, and a prayer to the Darician Queen Rathe Saban seemed no less ridiculous than addressing the ghost of Iaran Karkossa. The thought almost raised a giggle; Sorcha controlled herself and applied earnest effort to prayer, trying to recapture the awed reverence and faith she had known before she ever met Rathe or Odacon. She could not articulate even in thought a plea to the Silvanni Goddess.

For her sins, her mind turned to Odacon in search of forgiveness. Her Naril tattoos whispered and writhed, concealed beneath her rough woollen habit, but it was all she could do to keep still and silent until the sensation passed.

“I'm sorry,” Sorcha whispered, her lips barely moving, “I'm sorry, master.”

“What did you say?!” The voice of the Inquisitrix cut suddenly through Sorcha's meditations; she looked around in alarm and yelped, “Nothing, I didn't say anything!”

“Liar!” The Inquisitrix dealt Sorcha a stunning blow to the side of the head, laying her out on the floor. She came to within a minute, blinking dust and dizziness from her eyes. The Inquisitrix was seated near the campfire, winding a bandage around her hand; she had cut herself on the rim of Sorcha's mask.

“I'm sorry,” Sorcha babbled, still half-stunned from the blow. “I don't... I didn't...”

The Inquisitrix waved her uninjured hand and dismissed Sorcha's apologies with a grunt.

“It's not your fault, I know; the Naril made you their slave in body and soul. Only that your mind remained your own did I think you could be brought back from the darkness. Tonight, you have made me doubt my optimism. Tell me, did the Naril give you another name, a slave name?”

“No. They asked our names, and if they liked them then we were allowed to keep them. Usually they just called us 'you', or 'slave'. There was one who always used my name, though, and I never learned his. Usually I just called him 'master', but he just had a tattoo on his neck, the number thirteen; that was what I called him when we were alone.”

The Inquisitrix stood up while Sorcha talked and rested her hands on her swordhilts, listening.

“Did you have an affair with this Darian?” she asked. “I mean the beyond the relationship of master and slave?”

“No... yes. I didn't have any choice. There were a dozen of us, plus as many Kellion girls and about two dozen Darians. The master... Odacon... gave each of us to one of his men to train.”

“Then you were just his slave?”

“It was different with him. He made it different. I don't know what happened to the other girls... sometimes I heard them screaming, as they must have heard me, but we all saw what Rathelon did to Brindani.”

“Who was she? Not one of the Clan...” The Inquisitrix crouched down beside Sorcha, looking closely at her.

“She'd been in the Sinistral Guard, I don't know how she wound up on the ship with us, I'd never seen her before. She was the last one to break; Rathelon made an example of her. She fell in love with him, went over to them completely... but she fought them harder than any of us.”

“Are you sure this woman really existed, or are you talking about yourself?”

Sorcha met the Inquisitrix' eyes for the first time in long minutes. “I'm not mad, Inquisitrix. Perhaps I was, for a little while, after I escaped and before you found me. I'm not alright, I know that, but I promise you I'm not mad.”

The Inquisitrix sighed, shaking her head slightly. “Get some sleep, child. We have an early start tomorrow, and still miles to ride.”

Sorcha drew her blankets around her and lay down but could not get comfortable; she had grown used to sleeping in DeSilva's arms, and this first night alone ached keenly. They had told her he was dead, but she had not been allowed to see his body. She had seen the dagger though, standing in his side, and could not believe the wound any less than fatal. The shock of it left her numb; only now, fully twenty-four hours later, did the grief she dared not express begin to tear at her.

She lay rigid beside the dying campfire, waiting until he was sure the Inquisitrix slept before rolling on her front and burying her face in her arms, trying to muffle the sobs that forced their way out of her throat.

She thought she would weep all night, but the release of her distress brought on a rush of fatigue that plunged her into sleep while she was still crying. Almost without transition from waking to sleep, she found herself dreaming of DeSilva.

He stood upon a charnel pit, a field of broken bodies dressed in armour, their weapons scattered among the numberless corpses. She saw Kraag and Wadwo, even a few Goro, the dead faces of the horned beastmen reminding her of Menalowen, the Goro warrior she had loved in Heimjaro.

Then she saw the red light of Stantine Fenn, his fire casting DeSilva in silhouette.

Sorcha tried to call out, but in the dream, she could make no sound. DeSilva was walking towards the demon across the field of corpses. A few feet away he stopped, and then the demon spoke.

Its voice seemed to echo from every direction at once, louder and more terrifying even than when she had stood in Fenn's actual presence.

“I am not life. I am the echoing scream of a soul that perished long ago in the unbridgeable chasm between the worlds; as I appear to you a demon out of hell, so to me you are a callow shade without passion or remorse; what can you know of such things? Behold the madness you have wrought!”

Fenn spread wide his arms and let his light blaze bright across the gory field. Sorcha saw now the scale of the slaughter, the bodies piled six deep stretching to the limits of Stantine Fenn's light and beyond. Before Fenn let his fire die back to a pool of light around them, Sorcha saw leafless trees and the rising slopes of Mount Karonan and knew that her family had simply dumped DeSilva's body with the enemy fallen.

DeSilva spoke, but Sorcha did not hear what he said; all she heard was Fenn's reply, the undead knight emulating laughter, his inner fire crackling while he flung back his shoulders and slapped himself in the forehead with one blazing hand.

“The madness goes on! When will you have done with rape and slaughter? Even as a living man, a knight and warrior born, never was I so avid for blood. When will you have done?”

Whatever DeSilva said in reply, Stantine Fenn went on cackling like a court jester at his own execution.

“And what aid would you ask of me? Have I not murdered enough men at your command, and have you paid me in return? No, do not answer; you cannot excuse yourself, and I will not wander the earth a lonely spirit while you survive to enjoy your mortal life; no, either I will haunt your every living day or you will join me in hell, now and forever!”

Fenn lunged suddenly; DeSilva leapt backwards, lost his footing in the gory carpet underfoot and fell on his back. As Fenn advanced, DeSilva snatched up a spear from a dead Kraag hand and flung it wildly.

The throw never reached Stantine Fenn; the spear haft became charcoal and ashes within a moment of leaving DeSilva's hand. The spearhead sailed harmlessly past Fenn's shoulder, blackening to slag before it vanished from sight.

DeSilva struggled to rise, but even through the dream Sorcha felt the killing heat of the demon leeching the vitality from all living things around him.

“In Daricia you raped a girl,” Stantine Fenn intoned. “Sorcha was not your first, merely the most frequent and not even the last, and it is not for love that you would ride to her rescue, but for mere jealousy of those would harm her instead of you. Behold the doom that I have suffered, my only sin faith to my vow of knighthood; then behold yourself, pathetic specimen of a once proud lineage, grovelling in the filth of the latest slaughter you have made, whining for your afflictions, and begging my aid to recapture your favourite victim! You who are indebted to your damnation dare ask me again for favours?”

Sorcha tried to protest, to tell Fenn that he had it wrong, but still could make no sound. DeSilva was unable to rise, driven to his knees by Stantine Fenn's power.

“Nay, do not speak,” Fenn said. “You have no defence. Nevertheless, I shall aid you, but there will be no agreement this time, no false promises of payment; in return for my aid, I will require your life, Montesinos DeSilva. Your soul is a bleak and shrivelled thing, but your life... I will live within you, sorcerer, and in return I will grant you Sorcha Kavnor for your slave, but her life shall be mine to take if you once defy me. Do you understand?”

Sorcha quailed, lost in the nightmare, wishing only that she could go to DeSilva's side. But she could not move; indeed, she had no physical body at all in this dream of horror.

A Fiery gauntlet closed upon DeSilva's collar and hauled him upright. Sorcha could only scream silently when Stantine Fenn reached into her lover's sternum and tore his ribs apart with one blazing, bloody claw to put his body on like a coat.

Sorcha awoke screaming, with the Inquisitrix' hands on her shoulders, holding her down.

“Be calm, child!” The Inquisitrix commanded with stern concern. “It was a dream.”

“No, no...” Sorcha sobbed, shaking her head. “It was too real, the demon, he... he's got Monte...”

“Aye, child; they are together forever in hell. Such is the fate of sorcerers, but it shall not be yours, for you will spend your life earning Iaran's forgiveness for your sins in the certain hope that she will welcome someday welcome you in her embrace...”

A sudden sound stopped her; she looked up, then glanced at Sorcha.

“Did you hear...?” Sorcha began, and the Inquisitrix nodded, holding up one hand for silence.

“Stay here,” she whispered, and moved to the threshold of the gully to look out into the night. Sorcha hugged her knees against her chest and waited, her curtailed confessions still rising up inside her, but she locked her mouth shut and waited.

The sound was louder now, commingled noises separating as they drew nearer into marching boots and the clank of armour, an army crossing the Baltu Road. Moments before terrified curiosity forced Sorcha to see for herself, the Inquisitrix returned and crouched down again beside her.

“The Darian army is marching east,” she informed Sorcha in a whisper. “They are a quarter of a mile off, passing south of us. The defeat of the Kraag has left the way open for them; we know that the Darians have just come from sacking Narillion and Naril Na Silva, therefore I suspect that they are skirting Loth Kavnor on their way to Silveneir, otherwise they would use the passes on their own side of the border. They are marching to war.”

“Why should they avoid Loth Kavnor?” Sorcha whispered.

“There is nothing at Loth Kavnor save the dam itself; its destruction would render the entire Naril Vale worthless to any conqueror. That is why I believe that the Darian Warmaster has simply allowed his Kraagish enemies to destroy themselves attempting to seize the Loth while his armies march unopposed into Silveneir.”

“But Daricia's in no state to mount a war,” Sorcha whispered, although the Inquisitrix spoke in her normal tone and there was little danger of the distant enemy hearing their conversation. “I've met the Warmaster, I was there when the M... when the Naril attempted their coup, that's how I fell into their hands; I was at New Edlis with the Warmaster and the Queen when it all happened.”

“That was more than a year ago,” the Inquisitrix replied. “While you were with Odacon on his voyage to Heimjaro, the Warmaster returned to his throne. The uprising was quelled, New Edlis retaken, the Separatists driven back to their forests and a thousand Naril rebels burned at the stake along the Warmaster's Highway; the attack on Narillion was the culmination of a year-long campaign. You're quite right that Daricia has been torn by a civil war, but the Loyalists have won. Having inadvertently conquered Kellia with the sacking of Narillion and the ill-timed hosting of the Kraag, the Darians now carry their victory to Silveneir. Come and see for yourself.”

Sorcha followed the Inquisitrix back to the lip of the gulley and looked out. At first, the curtain of night blackened the landscape. Slowly, her eyes adapted, and she picked out first by sound and then by sight the Darian army marching along the ramparted slopes of the Baltu road, about a quarter of a mile to the south. The reservoir was behind them, and the vanguard of the army vanished to the east, but the latter half of the marching column was still passing beneath the high mountain trail that led to the Silvanni Abbey.

“What are we going to do?” Sorcha whispered.

“We shall do nothing. The affairs of this world are not our concern; we will see out the night and go on to the Abbey. Only if the outside world accosts us upon our very doorstep will we make it our concern.”

While they watched and whispered, a light had been slowly growing in the west. Sorcha saw it first and pointed, drawing the Inquisitrix' attention. “Is that the dawn?”

“That's west,” the Inquisitrix replied, brusquely at first but then with a slight tremolo; “That's Loth Kavnor.”

In the west a light like the sun had arisen from behind the horizon of Loth Kavnor's walls. Both Sorcha and the Inquisitrix had seen it before, the light of Stantine Fenn upon the ramparts of Loth Kavnor, but neither spoke the truth aloud. The Darian army saw the unnatural dawn too and stopped to watch; for an hour there was silence on the Baltu Road save for the gentle patter of the rain. The red light hung upon Loth Kavnor and shone off the reservoir, changing sometimes in colour or intensity but always baleful and foreboding. The dam was too distant for any sound to reach across the reservoir, but Sorcha imagined the screaming.

“Come.” The Inquisitrix brought her back into the shelter of the gulley and sat her down. “We'll lie low here tonight and go on in the morning; the world will turn well enough without us.”