would seem to have little choice,” Gonji countered. “Mord is determined to destroy the city. Tralayn has assured us of that all along.”
“You ought to be wary of what she tells you,” Simon observed with a trace of bitterness.
Gonji ignored it. “Anyway, whatever his ultimate intent, Klann has allowed enough outrages that our casus belli are sundry and sound. The city must fight back.” Gonji pounded a fist on his knee for emphasis but at once changed his tack when he realized that he was allowing emotion to interfere with clear-headed thinking again. “Of course,” he continued sedately, “there are also sound reasons for favoring an avoidance of fighting. Garth will try to speak with Klann about Mord’s treachery, if he can gain an audience.”
“Difficult words to frame,” Simon reminded, “without telling the king of your own planning against him.”
Gonji nodded. “Quite true,” he said glumly.
“Garth...,” Simon began pensively. “Who would have thought he’d have ridden with this mongrel army?”
“Hai,” Gonji agreed, “and I think there’s more he can tell us. If I can, I’ll learn from him what else he hides.”
Simon grunted. “Tell me what happened the night you rode out with the thirty—the madness in the city—the martial law that night.”
“Ah,” Gonji said, smiling. And he proceeded to relate the Zarnesti raid; and the tale of Klann’s seven lives, the legend told by Garth’s ancient parchment; and of the king’s murder and apparent resurrection as a new personage on that night. Simon absorbed the tale eagerly, with a more consuming interest than he had shown in anything Gonji had had to say before. At the story’s conclusion the mysterious warrior’s brow furrowed, a faraway glimmer drawing his eyes beyond the simple reality of the cave.
“So...that is why I couldn’t—An enchanted king, a being who cannot die, whose sibling kin reside within him....” Simon chuckled harshly, less a laugh than a gurgle of ironic triumph. “Oui,” he continued in French, “that is why—if this is true, then he’ll be a different man now from the one I saw—”
“So sorry,” Gonji cut in, frowning, “but you’re losing me. Speak German, dozo—did you say you saw Klann? When?”
Simon smiled, the first time Gonji had seen him do so, the angles of his face taking on a feral set.
“I’ve been inside the castle.”
“Ah, so desu ka?” Gonji intoned in surprise. “You’ve been in there and gotten out again? Why in hell didn’t you kill Klann or Mord, if you’re so foolish—”
“That was my objective,” Simon interrupted impatiently, “after I’d seen what they did at the monastery. Only I—I couldn’t go through with it. I found Klann’s chamber, killed his guards, and then I had him. I had him—there—as close to me as you are. But I couldn’t finish it. I didn’t know why then, but now it’s clear. The reason I felt that strange empathy with him...and the other feeling...that precognition that killing him would be futile, that my anger would be misdirected. By then Mord must have sensed my presence. He began calling out to the—the thing—the beast in me. And it to him. And then the whole castle was awake, and even by moving in shadow I couldn’t escape all of them. So I was forced to flee, leaving my good wishes with the bailey guards. I took this, though—”
He absently stroked the savage wound stitched together on his arm like the map of a jagged red mountain range. Gonji stared at him, spellbound at the man’s valor and capabilities. And Simon went on in a maundering fashion, his voice lapping the stillness like wind-swept waves.
“So that’s the reason for the purpure circles on the Klann crest...one for each dead brother. And the reason I felt the empathy. Misdirected anger...Mord...so it’s Mord, then....” His eyes abruptly became sharp silver lances, meeting Gonji’s squarely. “There is a thing of evil here...like few I’ve felt anywhere. There be signs of ill omen. That’s the reason I’ve stayed in the territory. Holy Word Monastery....”
He gently touched the burns he’d taken in the fight with the wyvern. The ointment he’d spread on them gleamed dully in the firelight. Gonji could smell its pungent tang. The samurai’s abdomen ached in reminder of the other’s tackling blow that had saved him from the searing strafe of the wyvern. Neither man spoke for a moment. Then Simon rose and took the jar of ointment from a carven niche in the rock.
“When were you at the monastery?” Simon asked suddenly. “And what exactly did Father Dobret tell you?”
Gonji was stung. He sat in the lotus position with arms folded at his chest. Sweat coursed in chilly traces down his ribs, but he met Simon’s gaze levelly.
“After the wyvern had done its...abomination. I spoke with your priest friend. He told me to tell you to help, not to seek personal vengeance.”
Simon swallowed hard, nodded with resignation, kept applying the clear ointment. “Even I dare not ignore the signs of the evil epoch that is upon us. Perhaps even Grimmolech is about—my nemesis.” His voice ground at the name as if a millwheel churned at it in his throat. “I’ve felt no such power of evil since—Could it be that Mord knows where I might find the Monster?” His eyes became argent wings that lofted him back through the past moon. “Do you recall the silence—that awful, total moment of lifeless silence that seized the world on that first night of the city’s occupation?”
Gonji remembered the palpable fear of the experience, the fleeting vision of the terrified, ghostly faces of the refugees in Garth Gundersen’s home that night. He nodded reverently.
“I knew then,” Simon went, “that a thing of evil had descended.... I’ll give you this: I’ll stay and help you kill Mord, once I’ve had the chance to wring some answers from him. That much I’ll do against this onslaught of evil.”
Gonji’s face, his entire posture where he sat, took on an adamantine cast. “Not enough,” he judged, shaking his head gravely. “You must be willing to help should we make war on Klann’s minions. You must help these suffering people.”
“Your words are laced with stupid bravado. It’ll never work. It’s sheer suicide to take these ill-trained citizens against a veteran army.”
“Who are you to judge? What do you know of our training?”
“I’ve watched. I was even with you during the entire cavalry exercise in the rain that night—”
“Then you’re a poor judge of military matters. They were quite sharp that night, despite all their discomforts. And that was but a fraction of the active militia. Did you also miss the display of group-mindedness in their presentation of—”
Simon grunted. “Engagement with phantom enemies is rather different from the real thing.” He rose and returned the ointment to its niche.
“Then you should have seen the attack on Zarnesti, when they freed the village from a whole company of mercenaries. They took it without a single casualty. I was quite proud of them that night.” Gonji’s eyes narrowed and he added softly: “Most of them.”
Sardonis refilled his wine cup and sat on the cot, resting his chin on a fist. “So what will you do next?”
Gonji smiled thinly. “I have a plan involving—” The smile faded. “Why should I
