Hero in the Shadows (17 page)

The waterfall flowed over him, cold and refreshing, washing the dried blood from his hands.

Leaving the water, he sat down on a white marble boulder, allowing the sun to dry him. A man could always make excuses for his actions, he thought, seeking some sense of self-worth for his stupidities or meanness of spirit. Ultimately, however, a man’s actions were his own, and he would have to answer for them at the court of the soul.

What will you say? he wondered. What excuses will you offer?

It was true that had the raiders not killed his family, Dakeyras
never would have become Waylander. Had he not become Waylander, he would not have taken the life of the last Drenai king. Perhaps then the terrible war with Vagria never would have happened. Hundreds of villages and towns would not have been burned, and scores of thousands never would have died.

Guilt merged with sorrow as he sat in the sunshine. It seemed incredible now to Waylander that he had once been a Drenai officer, in love with a gentle woman who wanted nothing more than to raise a family on a farm she could call her own. He could hardly even recall the thoughts and dreams of that young man. One fact was certain: The young Dakeyras never would have donned a disguise to butcher an unarmed man in his bed.

Waylander shivered at the thought.

Once more Waylander had journeyed to far places, choosing the distant realm of Kydor and attempting to immerse himself in a life of riches and plenty.

Yet now he had become the assassin once more. Not through necessity but through false pride.

It was not a pleasant thought.

Perhaps, he thought, when the ship comes in ten days and I journey across the ocean, I will find a life that does not involve violence and death. A world without people, a vast land of soaring mountains and trickling streams.

I could be content there, he decided.

Deep inside he could almost hear the mocking laughter.

You will always be Waylander the Slayer. It is your nature
.

He had, over the years, tried to change his life so many times. He had allowed himself to care for another woman, Danyal, and had helped her raise the two orphan girls, Miriel and Krylla. After the Vagrian War he had built a cabin high in the mountains, and assumed the life of the peaceful Dakeyras, a family man. He had almost grown content. After Danyal died in a riding accident he had raised the girls alone. Krylla wed a young man
and they moved away to a distant land to build a farm and start a family.

Then the killers had come into the mountains. Dakeyras had no idea why Karnak, the ruler of the Drenai, should send assassins after him. It made no sense, until the day he discovered that Karnak’s son had unwittingly caused the death of Krylla during a drunken chase. Terrified that this action would result in Waylander’s seeking revenge, Karnak took precipitate action. Assassins were dispatched to kill him.

They failed. They died. And the days of death and blood returned.

Eventually Waylander moved to the distant Gothir city of Namib, where he tried to rebuild his life. Once more assassins came for him. He led them deep into the forests outside the city, killing three and capturing the fourth. Instead of executing the last man, he made a deal with him. Karnak had offered a fortune in gold for the head of Waylander. Proof of the killing would come with the handing over of his famed double-winged crossbow. One of the dead assassins bore a passing resemblance to Waylander, so he cut the head from the corpse and placed it in a sack. Then he gave his crossbow to the survivor.

“With these you will become rich,” he said. “Is our business concluded?”

“Aye, it is,” said the man, who returned to Drenan and pocketed his reward. The skull and crossbow had then been exhibited in the Marble Museum.

Ustarte the Priestess stood by the window. Far below she could see the Gray Man sitting beside the waterfall. Even from there she could feel his shame. She turned from the window. Her three shaven-headed acolytes waited silently at the table. Their thoughts were troubled, their emotions strong. Prial was the most fearful, for he was the most imaginative.
He was remembering the cage and the whips of fire. His heart was beating wildly.

The powerful, brooding Menias also felt fear, but it was leavened by frustration and anger. He hated the masters with all his being and dreamed of the day he could change and tear into them, ripping the flesh from their bones. He had not wanted to escape through the gateway. He had urged them all to remain and fight on.

Corvidal was the calmest of the three, but then, he was the most content. All he desired was to be in the company of Ustarte. The priestess felt his love, and though she could not return it in the way he desired, she still found great joy in it, for it had freed him from the hatred that still chained Menias. The simple fact that love could conquer hate gave Ustarte hope.

“Do we go?” asked the golden-eyed Prial.

“Not yet.”

“But we have failed,” said Menias, the shortest and heaviest of the three. “We should go home, find others who have survived, and continue the fight.”

Ustarte returned to the table, her heavy red silk gown rustling as she moved. The dark-eyed, slender Corvidal rose and drew back her chair. She glanced into his gentle face and smiled her thanks as she sat down. How could she tell Menias that none of the others had survived, that she had felt their deaths even from beyond the gateway? “I cannot just leave these people to the fate awaiting them.”

They sat in silence once more. Then Prial spoke. “The gateways are opening. The killers in the mist have already been seen. The
Kriaz-nor
will follow soon. The puny weapons of this world will not stop them, Ustarte. I have no wish to view the horrors to come.”

“And yet the people of this world defeated them three thousand years ago,” she said.

“They had greater weapons then,” said Menias, his voice deep and low. She felt the frustration in him, and the anger.

“Where did they gain the knowledge to make such weapons?” she countered. “And where are those weapons now?”

“How can we know?” put in Corvidal. “The legends speak of fantastic gods, demons, and heroes. There is no history of that period in this world. Only fable.”

“And yet there are clues,” said Ustarte. “All the legends speak of a war among the gods. That suggests to me that there was discord in Kuan Hador and that at least some of them sided with humanity. How else could they have created the swords of light? How else could they have won? Yes, we have failed in our attempt to prevent the opening of the gates, and we have failed so far in our search to discover what happened to the weapons humanity used to win the first war. However, we must go on.”

“It is too late for this world, Ustarte,” said Prial. “I say we should use the last of the power to open a gateway.”

Ustarte considered his words, then shook her head. “What power remains in me I will use to aid those who will fight the enemy. I will not run.”

“And who will fight?” asked Menias. “Who will stand against the
Kriaz-nor
? The duke and his soldiers? They will be cut down or worse. They will be captured and joined. Other nobles will be seduced by promises of riches or extended life or power within the New Order. Humans are so easily corrupted.”

“I think the Gray Man will fight,” she said.

“One human?” asked the astonished Menias. “We risk our lives because of your faith in one human?”

“There will be more than one,” she said. “There is another clue that links the legends. All the stories speak of the return of the heroes. They die, and yet people believe they will come again when the need is upon the land. It is my belief that those who aided humanity subtly joined the heroes they used, so that when the evil returned, their descendants would have the power to combat it.”

“With respect, Great One,” said Corvidal, “that is a hope, not a belief. There is not a shred of true evidence to substantiate such a theory.”

“It is more than a hope, Corvidal. We know the power of joining, for that is how we exist. We also know that
our
rulers insure that no joining can ever sire—or bear—children. They dare not risk creating beings who could decide their own destinies. But I think this is what the Ancients did, enhancing their human allies and allowing the talents to be passed from generation to generation. We see it around us even now: Nadir shamans who can meld man and wolf into fearsome creatures, Source priests whose spirits can soar and whose powers can heal terrible diseases. We know from our studies that before the coming of the Ancients mankind had few of these gifts. The Ancients imbued certain members of the human race with them. The Ancients told their allies that in times to come, if the evil returned, these powers would flower again. Hence the legends of the return of kings and heroes. I sense it in the Gray Man.”

“He is merely a killer,” Prial said dismissively.

“He is more than that. There is a nobility of spirit in him and a power not found in ordinary men.”

“I am not convinced,” said Prial. “I stand with Corvidal on this issue. You are risking our lives on a forlorn hope.”

Seeing that they were all in agreement, she bowed her head. “I will open a gateway for you all to leave,” she said sadly.

“And yet you will stay?” Corvidal asked softly.

“I will.”

“Then I will stay with you, Great One.”

Menias and Prial glanced at one another. Then Prial spoke. “I will stay until the arrival of the
Kriaz-nor
. But I have no wish to throw away my life needlessly.”

“And you, Menias?” asked the priestess.

He shrugged his powerful shoulders. “Where you are, Great One, there shall I be.”

Yu Yu Liang cleared his throat and spit into the sea. He was miserable. It seemed to him that his quest to become a hero was not all he had anticipated. As a ditchdigger he received a small amount of coin at the end of the week, which he would use on food, alcohol, lodging, and pleasure women. There was always enough food, never enough women, and far too much alcohol. But looking back, it had not been as unpleasant a life as it had seemed while he was living it.

Picking up a flat rock, Yu Yu threw it far out over the waves. It struck once, skimmed for twenty feet, then disappeared below the surface.

Yu Yu sighed. Now he had a sharp sword, no money, and no women and was sitting in the sunshine of a foreign land wondering why he had traveled this far. He had not intended to leave the lands of the Chiatze. His first thought had been to strike out for the mountains to the west and join a band of robbers. Then he had come upon the battlefield and the dead
Rajnee
. He recalled the moment when he had first seen the sword. It was jutting from the earth just behind a bush. Sunlight had glanced from the blade as Yu Yu was robbing the corpse. The
Rajnee
was carrying no coin, and Yu Yu pushed himself to his feet and walked to the sword. It was quite beautiful, the blade gleaming, the long, two-handed hilt wondrously fashioned and leather-bound. The pommel was of silver, embossed with a mountain flower. Reaching out, Yu Yu drew the sword from the earth.

For some reason he then forgot his original purpose and decided to head northeast, filled with a desire to see foreign lands. It was most peculiar, and sitting in the sunshine of Carlis Bay, he could not for the life of him remember just why he had thought it was such a fine idea.

Two days later something even more mysterious occurred. He came upon a merchant who was traveling in a cart with two pretty daughters and a retarded son. The wheel had come
off the cart, and the group was sitting by the roadside. In his new life as a robber and an outlaw, Yu Yu should have stolen the man’s gold, ravished his daughters, and left the scene richer and more relaxed. Indeed, that had been his plan, and he had marched forward, adopting what he considered a menacing expression. Then, to show his intent, he had grasped the hilt of the sword, ready to draw it and terrify his victims.

An hour later he had repaired the cart and escorted the merchant to his home village some six miles to the east. For this he had received a fine meal, a kiss on the cheek from both daughters, and a small sack of supplies from the merchant’s wife.

You are too stupid to be a robber, he had told himself as he resumed his journey.

And now that stupidity had brought him to Kydor, a land where men bearing Chiatze features stood out like … like … he struggled for a simile but could come up only with “warts on a whore’s ass.” That was not entirely pleasing, and he stopped thinking of similes. However, the point was a good one. How could a Chiatze warrior become a robber in a land where he would be instantly identified wherever he went? It was nonsense.

At that moment a young blond-haired woman emerged onto the small beach. To Yu Yu’s surprise, she ignored him and began to remove her dress and undergarments. Once naked, she ran across the sand and dived into the water. Coming to the surface, she swam in long, easy strokes, curving around to approach Yu Yu’s position. Treading water, she threw back her head and swept her hands through her wet hair. “Why are you not swimming?” she called out to him. “Are you not hot sitting there in wolf fur?”