Chapter 14
“We had an unexpected change of mission,” Rynn explained to Pythas. “The Darkling we need for Kaz’s mission had been captured and was being tortured. Kaz has her in a stone womb for rebirth into a High Toróg, and...”
“Powers!” cried Protasion. “That makes sense of another of those cryptic passages. ‘The daughter of darkness must be born again to aid with the dawning and the mother of shadow.’ Oh, there goes that dratted chime again.”
“We didn’t hear it in the tent,” said Rynn.
“We will when she emerges,” said Harkon. “We need to get help and food to Kaz and the other trógling, and help her hide a glowing crystal womb.”
“A couple of harmless fishermen on the river, and a big enough boat to pull out and put over it, and the trog... trógling,” suggested Ralthur Kron. “I want to question my cousin about why they seized the Darkling.”
“Walk him about the sewers for a few hours, then bring him into a light office,” suggested Polia.
“Organise it,” said Harkon. “Protasion, fancy going fishing?”
“Evgon’s better at making like a peasant,” said Protasion, regretfully.
“Fine, let’s go find some clothes, and arrange a boat,” said Harkon.
Evgon sniggered.
“The Selenites have no idea how easily we pass over and through their siege,” he said.
Kaz made her way cautiously along the river, and found a group of tróglings with a crystalline sphere, still glowing blue. They had made some attempt to cover it with vegetation to hide the glow, but as they were naked and had no tools had limited resources. Kaz cut some saplings and sharpened the points for the others to drive in with large stones to make a fence around the glowing rock, and showed them how to weave the side branches she had cut off in and out of the fence posts, whilst others brought river mud to daub onto the smaller branches. At the entrance, posts driven in front of the gap held short poles dropped behind these and the wall behind.
“Just in time,” muttered Kaz, hearing the light plash of oars from a small boat. “Drop flat!” she did so herself, and was copied by the other trógling.
“Is that a faint blue glow out of the top of that shack?” asked Evgon.
“It is,” said Harkon. “Make for the shore, and sing a good Alethosan hymn.”
“And look, it’s Kaz, waving,” said Evgon when they were a few bars into the hymn.
“These are friends,” said Kaz, to the other trógling, running to help Harkon and Evgon to bring the boat inshore.
“We brought food and clothes for the others,” said Harkon. “And you want to hide the blue glow from above.”
“It shows? Oh bother! The down side of being short,” said Kaz.
“That’s why we brought the boat,” said Harkon. “We were going to use it upside-down over the whole thing, but we can prop it up over the top and we have a heap of nets to hang off the side so you can lie low underneath the boat. There are blankets in here too.”
“Can you leave me Tan, and take the other to safety when they’ve eaten?” said Kaz. “I’d feel happier.”
“Certainly,” said Harkon. “And Evgon will be mending nets if anyone asks.”
oOoOo
Lazar Kron was furious, frightened, and starting to become confused. He had been walked up and down a corridor in the pitch dark, Pythas having decreed that a service tunnel in the temple should be used, not give away the secret of the sewers, and Lazar was stumbling with tiredness. He had no idea that the hands turning him at each end and forcing him on were willing volunteers of trógling who did not like the way the Selenite Empire treated its slaves; as trógling were always available and were not considered much good as house servants, when a work gang had done their work, they were often used in what passed in the Empire as ‘comic turns’ in the arena, pitted against large gladiators, or a group of workmen with spades against wild animals. One trógling gladiator had made a name for himself, one Dróg, and one of the recently rescued trógling was in contact with him, being his brother, and the resistance group Dróg had set up in the Selenite capital, Selenopolis. Dróg was now a worshiper of Alethos and had been given contacts with the plainsfolk who were in revolt. Lazar did not know this, only that he had been up all night and was tired out, and it was something to do with one of his cousin’s slaves. He had recognised Kaz as the one who had brought wine to him when he was discussing the upcoming executions with Alenna Dren and Clodus Mils, if only because of her vibrant health. He suspected his cousin of sleeping with that obviously feminine trógling, and despised his cousin for it.
At last, asleep on his feet, he was dragged to a room where the sun streamed blindingly in the window, and winced. Then he recognised his cousin behind the desk, despite the painful red mists from the glare of the sun. His jailors here were humans, who had taken him from the trógling.
“You!” he snapped. “You sent your slave to kidnap me!”
“Not a slave,” said Ralthur. “My colleague came to rescue Hraazaz Wealthbringer. Why on earth did you detain her? The Toróg merchants are usually considered neutral.”
Lazar was too furious at what he perceived as his cousin’s treachery, disoriented, and off guard in capture shock without expecting to be asked serious questions as there had been no suggestion of what he recognised as torture.
“She fulfils the prophecy,” he snapped. “‘The dark one with light hair must be stopped before she knows the Daykaz, when Shadow joins Dark and Light, let Chaos beware.’”
“Oh, that’s your version of it, is it? Thank you,” said Ralthur. “What do you know about the Daykaz?”
“No more than you do,” spat Lazar. “‘The New Dawn can bring down the Red Moon, and she must not become the beloved of Truth.’ Naturally, we have taken every opportunity to put down any female worshipper of any of the cults known as Knights of the Clear Skies, by marrying her forcibly to high ranking Selenites so she is spoiled goods, and we will put an end to the plainsfolk rite of putting their prettiest maiden in a hut for the winter solstice for their Son of Rebirth, who is surely synonymous with Pollonis, god of light and truth. We will raid every village and carry off these girls, and sell them as slaves.”
“Can you be sure that the Daykaz is not already the beloved of truth?” asked Ralthur.
“We know that Pollonis has one bastard but the prophesies around that one, is that he will aid in the revelation of the Daykaz, not that his mother is. She is a stupid and foolish woman, anyway, and Lord Daze has already taken steps to make sure that the sunspawn is ignorant and arrogant with no real skills.”
“I see,” said Ralthur.
“The Pollonis bastards would be gloating if Pollonis was ready to take a bride,” said Lazar.
“And you are certain it’s Pollonis who is named as Truth?” asked Ralthur.
“Who else could it be? His niece, Thyella stands for truth, but she is a female, and the Daykaz is named as female.”
“It might be a, ah, congruence of oysters,” said Ralthur.
Lazar looked panicked. Presumably he had not yet heard that the Celestial Virgin was no longer in that state.
“I... no,” he said. “That’s unlikely for some kind of rising fertility goddess, which is the other reason it can’t be Alethos. It could be Polos, I suppose, or Librax but it doesn’t seem likely, any more than Thanos. Whoever heard of Death and Fertility combined outside of our own cult? Or are you apostate on the worship of Selen as well as a traitor?”
“I’m with Alethos now,” said Ralthur. “And yes, I dealt with the spirits of retribution from Thanos. He will need new ones. What, cousin, did you think me effete and feeble, or something?”
“Yes,” said Lazar, startled into honesty. “A governor’s position is luxurious, and you don’t have to do much, and I suppose you are degenerate enough to take the trogling to bed and that’s why you freed her so she is no slave, but is loyal to you.”
“Trógling, and no, she is no lover of mine, she has her own,” said Ralthur. “She’s a free trógling and nothing to do with my household.”
“But she served wine!”
“Well, yes, to be able to spy on you,” said Ralthur. “Really, do keep up, old boy. You were having talks with Clodus Mils and Alenna Dren. I thought she was too recognisable to pass, but all you noticed was that she has become shapely with many years good food. I don’t think you have any more use to me, save as a hostage. Take him out.”
Lazar’s human jailors, grinning, dragged him to a cell usually used to sober up overly celebrant cultists.
oOoOo
Kaz and Tan sat in the hot, stuffy space under the boat, overheated even as summer turned to autumn, as Evgon sat with netting tools and looking as if he knew how to use them. The boat was arranged so that Kaz could go and check on the crystal sphere.
“So, uh, if you needed something to do and wanted anyone to give you a good time...” said Tan.
“We have something to do. Wait quietly until Hraazaz needs us,” said Kaz. “You’re her most trusty slave, so she will be glad to see you. And I have more ability to help her than many a High Toróg. There’s not a lot we could do under here, anyway.”
“I was thinking we could get it on together,” said Tan.
“You surely don’t mean sex, do you?” said Kaz. “Why on earth do you think I’d lay with a virtual stranger when I already have a lover?”
“You excite me; you are powerful and shapely, and...”
“And unavailable,” said Kaz, firmly. “Keep your hands to yourself, Tan, and you won’t lose either of them.”
“You talk like a mistress,” said Tan, sulkily, snatching a questing hand back.
“Well, yes,” said Kaz. “You chose to remain a slave. I, and Rynn, chose to be free. Now, hush; and if you have the energy, you can stay awake while I catch up on my sleep.”
She rolled over and promptly went to sleep, being well trained.
Tan resented, but did not for one moment think that she was sufficiently deeply asleep to get away with any unauthorised fondling.
Kaz was alert at the sound of the first searchers. The other guards would have looked for their fellows at the changing of the guard if not before, and moreover, it would have gone quiet in the tent. Once the two guards and Quirinus Lex were freed, and the torturer found to be dead, and Lazar Kron vanished, someone would have thought to wake Thorus Mils, brother of the late Clodus, and ask for orders. Mils would have come to look, doubtless made the sign of the crescent at the sight of the mysterious gate drawn on the ground. Then, a good soldier would send out searchers, because nobody knew how far the supposed gate could take people, and there had to have been gossip of previously rescued people having been seen not far away.
Hence, a patrol came upon the boat.
“Hey! Fisherman! Have you seen any trogs or troglings?” barked the officer involved.
“Recently, you mean, your honour?” said Evgon, scratching the back of his head.
“Since last night,” barked the officer.
“Oh! No,” said Evgon, who knew he had seen no trogs or troglings, only a cocooned Toróg and tróglings. “I seen a Darkling once,” he volunteered.
“When? Where?” barked the officer. Evgon scratched his head again.
“Happen that must of been the spring fair,” he said. “He looked mean. I don’t want to see him again.”
“This idiot knows nothing, sir,” said another.
“What’s your name, and where do you live?” barked the officer.
Evgon stared at him in slack jawed incomprehension.
“Why, everyone knows who I am,” he said. “Everyone who counts, that is, which is everyone in Smikropolis.”
“I don’t come from your stinking little fishing village, however, I come from the real world,” snapped the officer.
“Oh, I’m sorry, your honour, if I’d known you had a stick up your arse I’d have saluted it,” said Evgon. “You rely on my stinking little fishing village among others to feed your troops though, so if I was you, I’d not get too excitable. Everyone knows Plutan the Lucky.”
“Well, don’t cross our troops again, Plutan,” said the officer, who knew fine well what would happen to an officer who made the villagers stop selling their wares to their quartermasters. He was well enough aware that the prices had doubled since the siege, but without designating half the army to fish or farm, they had to accept ‘inflation due to war,’ and smile and pay.
Evgon settled back when the soldiers had gone, and broke out food for himself and the two trógling.
“You’re hilarious when you get going, Evgon,” said Kaz. “Is there a Plutan the Lucky?”
“Yes, and he’s a popular fellow. Nobody who was hiding something would be likely to be so rude,” said Evgon. “It’s safe, I think, to pop out for food and air, and a stretch.”
Nothing more exciting happened, and darkness again fell whilst the Selenite army searched futilely for their missing prisoners.
Harkon rowed down river in another boat, to relieve Evgon, and as midnight approached, the crystal womb started pulsing, its blue light becoming achingly white in pulses between quieting to an almost darkened blue. And Kaz sang songs used for birthing as the pulses became faster.
