The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [187]
‘I came to ask you to forgive me,’ Salamander said. ‘I had to defend my people against your warleaders, or I’d never have betrayed you. We’re not Vandar’s spawn, your holiness. We’re just mortals like you and yours. I swear it to you.’
Lakanza considered him unspeaking, her dark eyes bright and thoughtful despite the web of wrinkles that surrounded them.
‘I can’t find Rocca,’ he went on. ‘Why didn’t she come out with the rest of you?’
‘Truly, be you surprised?’ Lakanza’s voice wavered close to tears. ‘All her trust she does put in Alshandra, to protect her and our holy relics both, or, if she wills it, then to die in the shrine. The two dragons be here, I see, and your dwarves do use evil magic against us, so methinks it be the last war at the ending of the world, just as prophecy do tell us.’
‘It’s not, your holiness. It’s merely a strike by my people against those who’ve slaughtered our allies like sheep.’
‘No doubt your prince of darkness told you such. There be no need upon it to be true. Now, you answer me somewhat. Since you be not taken to her country, how then did you escape the tower? Were it witchery?’
‘It was, Your Holiness. There was no miracle.’
Lakanza said nothing, her wrinkled hands flaccid in her lap, and stared off into empty air. At length she sighed and shook her head. ‘It does ache my heart the worst of all, that I were so unfair to our Sidro. She did try to warn me in hints and suchlike that you be a witchman, but in my pride I listened not. Be you a mazrak, then?’
‘I am, Your Holiness. I tricked you into imprisoning me in the tower, and then I flew away.’
‘Evan, Evan! End your evil ways, I do beg you, before it be too late. Be not asking me for forgiveness! Ask her, and she will give it. You’d not be here on your knees before me if in your heart you knew not how evil a thing this witchery be.’
‘There’s naught evil about the dweomer. That’s not what aches my heart. It’s that I betrayed you and Rocca both.’
‘What of that omen in the black stone? Rocca did see a frightful vision there. A picture did appear of our goddess in the sky, but then she were torn to pieces by invisible beasts. She did die above a ford, while below the Lijik army did cheer and gloat. Were it you who did send it to torment us?’
‘What? I didn’t! Never would I mock you that way, never! Please believe me.’
‘I do believe you.’ Lakanza considered for a moment, then sighed. ‘Who sent it, I know not, mayhap Vandar himself, but it gladdens my very soul that you be innocent of it. I do think me, Evan, that someday your true heart will speak, and then you’ll be coming back to us, where you belong. I’ll pray to our goddess to make it so.’
Salamander looked up at her face, at her dark eyes, so concerned, so genuinely kind, so deeply worried about him and his soul, despite the doom he’d brought to her people in the fortress—and to Rocca, as well. He tried to speak, then wept, sobbing like a child, while she laid both hands on his head and blessed him.
‘Lakanza’s safe in the Ancients’ camp,’ Laz said. ‘I told you they wouldn’t kill an old woman. So are your other sisters in Alshandra, as far as I could tell, anyway.’
‘Well, if there are any gods, I thank them,’ Sidro said. ‘And if you’re telling me the truth.’
‘Sisi, I wouldn’t lie about something like that.’
‘Oh, wouldn’t you? You lied when you told me you’d warned them that the Lijik army was coming. It crossed the ford without anyone there to stop it.’
‘What? I told you, first of all, that I was working a complicated spell without ever having done it before. Second, even if the stone showed them what I wanted to show them, your holy fools had to interpret the omen. Don’t blame me if they got it all wrong.’
‘Well, that’s true, isn’t it? I’m sorry.’
He scowled at her, then continued. ‘It was an interesting flight over Zakh Gral this