Ohzikar grasped at his head. "What do you mean?"
Zyrella took a deep breath and thought about what she should do. What could she do? The White Tigress was already far away. And doing what? Rescuing the Slayer? Sighing with frustration, Zyrella decided that seeing to Ohzikar was more important at the moment. It wasn't as if the Tigress had not given her instructions.
She explained her failure to him as she removed his helmet and checked his wound. "You probably have a concussion. That's the worst of it, though."
Ohzikar tore a strip of cloth from his under-tunic and wrapped it around his head. Still naked, and shivering from cold and fatigue, Zyrella walked over to the precipice. Through the rain and dark, she couldn't see the river below. She could only it hear it roaring and sloshing.
Something pricked her senses. She looked about and found Bavadi's qavra lying in the mud near her feet. She made sure there were no active sorceries radiating from it then picked it up.
"Ohzi, do you think Bavadi really has been duped by Salahn?"
"I can't imagine how. A man can be deceived into killing a good person, but he can't be tricked into torturing children. The Tigress was just trying to confuse him."
"Then why did she stop you from killing him?"
Ohzikar shrugged, and Zyrella frowned. She wanted to tell Ohzi how she felt when she looked at Bavadi, but he wouldn't understand. He would think she had lost her mind, that the sorceries had affected her wits. And perhaps they had.
Footsteps crunched toward the gap in the wall. Ohzikar stood, suddenly alert again. "Our comrades—"
"Are dead," said a large palymfar with a battle-axe as he thudded into the courtyard. "And now you will join them."
Blood stained the man's face, his hands and arms, his slashed burnoose. He spied the qavra in Zyrella's hand, yelled a curse against her, and charged. Zyrella sprinted ahead of Ohzikar, dove, and rolled into the palymfar's feet. The assassin tripped and fell into Ohzikar's thrusting tulwar. Though pierced through the stomach, the palymfar swung his axe. Ohzikar ducked. The blade barely missed his head. As he rose, the palymfar head-butted him. Ohzikar fell back, twisting and dragging his tulwar downward. The sword sliced through the palymfar's intestines. Despite his battle rage, the assassin collapsed and died.
Ohzikar cried out for his comrades. None answered. He lay back, gasped for air, and tried to staunch his nosebleed. Scanning for friends and enemies, Zyrella knelt and cast a simple spell that nevertheless shot pain into her mind.
All others on the mountain summit were dead. Beyond, she couldn't tell. Zyrella hoped Jaska Bavadi had also perished if for no other reason than she couldn't bear to see him again. However, she feared the White Tigress had gone to save him. She felt slighted that she had risked so much only to have the Tigress spend all her efforts on the Slayer. But she reminded herself the goddess was grateful to her, and wise.
"They're gone?" Ohzikar asked.
"Our friends? Yes. The other palymfar, too, though I don't know about Bavadi."
"You're going to have to go after the goddess without me."
"No, we'll get you inside and check those wounds. The goddess didn't ask us to come along, and neither of us is in any shape to. We have done our part for now. If she needs us, she can call for us. Otherwise, we will go down when we can and search for the Slayer's body or see if we can discover what the White Tigress did."
Ohzikar spotted the qavra in her hands. "You should toss it into the river."
"No. It may be of use to us later."
Distant thunder rumbled. The wind had calmed to a steady breeze, but still the clouds poured rain. Zyrella helped Ohzikar into the shrine. She hoped she wouldn't go to sleep tonight and never wake. That sometimes happened to sorcerers after wielding too much power. She had definitely drained a handful of years from her life this day.
A life she had thought would end tonight. But there was time for that yet. Their war was far from over.
"We'll be all right here, Ella."
Zyrella tenderly stroked his cheek. Ohzi was all the family she had left now. Twelve friends she'd known all her life had perished this night.
~~~
Jaska tumbled through raging waters, scraping the canyon walls. Though wide horizon and starry sky appeared at the canyon's end, he gave up. Much of his blood now flowed within the Gasrah and willpower could carry him no further.
But as he sank, the White Tigress shot from the muddy north bank. Water surged around her as she navigated the currents. She reached Jaska, grabbed his arm gently, despite her massive jaws, and pulled him ashore.
The White Tigress licked his face and pawed at his chest but to no avail. So she channeled some of her spirit into him until he breathed again, hoping her gamble would pay off.
Water poured from his mouth. Wounded tissues knitted together. His eyelids fluttered then opened.
"Do you know who you are?"
"Jaska Bavadi . . . a palymfar . . ." He touched his neck where his qavra should have been. His fingers slid along a layer of soft scar tissue. His wounds, instead of searing with pain, were cold and numb.
"I have sealed your wounds with magic, but you will still need rest and a healer's care."
"Why-Why did you save me?"
"Because I need your help. Because we should be allies."
"But you're a demon."
"Are you still certain that I am evil?"
"I-I don't know. My head isn't clear, and the world . . . Everything looks different to me. Like . . ."
"Like a shadow has been lifted? You are free now. The templar's sword severed the chains binding your mind. Your qavra is gone and with it Salahn's power over you."
"That's ridiculous."
"If a goddess can be bound, a man would pose no great difficulty."
"But why would Salahn bind me?"
"Eighteen years ago, a prophecy told him you would threaten him one day. But he could not bring himself to kill you. You were everything he wanted in a son: clever, physically gifted, and relentless in spirit. Except you were incorruptible. So Salahn defied Fate and bound you with sorcery. You became his pawn and believed your every misdeed to be noble."
Jaska shook his head.
"You must realize the truth, Jaska. The sooner you wake to reality, the better for us all." The White Tigress rested her head between her paws. "I am weary. Everything hinges on you. For the moment you are free from Salahn's power, but a connection yet remains and only you can sever it."
Jaska scowled. "All of this … It can't be true."
"Think back over your career. What did you do to your enemies? To their families? Recall a single mission where you confronted some evildoer in his household. What happened to him and his family?"
Instantly, he thought of Lordhak Mul, a powerful merchant lord. Jaska had led forty palymfar into Lordhak's keep and returned with only twenty-three. It had proved, nevertheless, a resounding victory. Yet the details eluded him. Warily he described what little he recalled to the White Tigress. "My injuries are clouding my memories."
"Can you remember the day you met Salahn?"
"Yes. Of course." He pictured it vividly in his mind. "That was the most important day of my life."
"What about the second, third, and fourth days?"
"In complete detail."
"What did you do in the weeks after your initiation, after you gained your qavra?"
"I suppose I trained."
"You did not celebrate in any way?"
"Not that I remember."
"What about your first mission as a full-fledged palymfar? Surely you remember that."
But he didn't. The same held true for Mardha, his pledged life-mate and Grandmaster Salahn's daughter. He remembered when they first met, but he couldn't recall a first kiss or a first night together.
He told her more about the assault on Muhl's keep.
"So you remember wounding Lordhak in the leg then disarming him, but what came next?"
"I think . . . I killed him. Enemies of the people are slain."
"According to the old code, palymfar set men on trial whenever possible."
Jaska's face blanked. "I'm sure necessity required such action that night."
"What happened to Lordhak's family?"
"I don't recall. Perhaps he sent them away during the attack."
The White Tigress sighed a low, sad growl. "Jaska, you tortured and then slaughtered them before Lordhak's eyes."
Jaska tried to stand, but his legs wouldn't bear him up. "I'd never do such a thing!"
The silver eyes of the White Tigress flared. "It is true that Jaska Bavadi would never commit such an act, but Salahn's Slayer would. Ask anyone in Hareez. The events are legend. You made the servants watch and sent them away to spread word of what happens to those who resist the palymfar."
"I didn't do any of those things! It's not possible."
"Jaska, I gained this knowledge through Grandmaster Salahn. I have seen everything through his eyes, including you. And I have scanned your memories. I know what happened." The White Tigress paced around him. "Lordhak had a daughter with long, sable hair twisted into a braid that fell over her right shoulder."
A ghost of an image appeared within Jaska's mind. "I-I remember her, vaguely."
"She couldn't speak. Not a sound would come from her."
Bile stirred within Jaska's stomach. His heart pounded.
"You remember something terrible now, don't you?" Jaska looked away and nodded. "You cut lines across her flesh with your bagh nakh. You said you would hurt her until she screamed, knowing she could not."
"But I would never harm a child!"
"Her mouth contorted, her eyes pleaded. She swung at you, scratched and bit, and you continued to torture her while her parents watched and the other palymfar laughed."
Jaska saw a flash of frightened, innocent eyes and blade-scored flesh. A mouth that tried to scream and failed. His hands trembled.
"You still carry a scar where she bit you."
He raised the sleeve of his right arm and looked at two small sets of scars an inch apart that curved in toward one another. He tried to deny what she said, but memories surfaced matching her words. He wept and the White Tigress curled up against him. He didn't resist her. Her presence was comforting.
"Everything happened as I said, Jaska, and you will spend the rest of your life tormented by the evils you committed. Over the next few weeks, the memories of what you did will begin to return, as long as you do not replace your qavra.
"When the nightmares threaten, you must call on resources deep within where your purity remains. Do not seek solace with Salahn or Mardha, no matter their promises."
Suddenly, the White Tigress sprang up and then thrashed about as if something had fallen onto her. As if chains weighted her neck and shoulders . . .
Panting, she spoke quickly. "You must overcome your past. You must defeat Salahn. Zyrella and Ohzikar will help you free Hareez from Salahn's terror. But only you can stop him. If you do not, he will grow in power until he rules the Shadowland, and then he will open the Underworld Gates to retrieve someone lost to him long ago. In doing so, he may destroy the world as we know it."
The White Tigress roared and struggled. She turned translucent, and her form blurred at the edges. Jaska reached out to her and spoke the only truth he felt certain of. "I know you're not evil and that something is wrong with me. I promise I will seek the truth and follow the palymfar way."
"Then go to my friend, the Farseer of Vaalshimar. She can help you. I am certain of that. If I had listened to her decades ago, none of this would--"
The White Tigress suddenly winced and flattened her ears.
"What's wrong?"
Moaning in pain, she replied, "Your master is binding me, and no matter how hard I fight it, I cannot stop him."
"Why do you struggle if it's hopeless?"
"I must make Salahn disperse me entirely or else I may take memories of what I have done here back to him. Unfortunately, I do not think I have the strength to hold out long enough."
Jaska wrapped his arms around the White Tigress, and it seemed as if he held nothing more solid than cotton. "I will struggle with you."
"Against your master?"
"On behalf of the truth, whatever it might be. This is my gift to you in return for saving my life."
Within minutes, her form had nearly dissipated. "May the spirits of all the greater deities be strong in you, Jaska Bavadi."
Then, with a savage roar, the White Tigress disappeared.
~~~
Two decades of demented sacrificial acts had profaned the Grand Temple of the White Tigress in Kabulsek. This morning's bloodletting was the worst. Not a flagstone remained without a drop of innocent blood or bits of bone, skin, and hair. A temple once revered for sweet jasmine incense now smelled worse than a slaughterhouse.
Grandmaster Salahn knelt at the altar. Unhinged sigils described in blood sprawled across his skin. The most devoted of his palymfar lined the walls beneath monochrome stained glass windows. His daughter Mardha paced the sanctuary. Her ebony hair hung free over a black gossamer shift that clung to her voluptuous figure. Blue-grey tattoos decorated skin as uncommonly pale as her mother's had been. Salahn admired the sway of her hips. She was like her long-departed mother, only warped and everything he could desire.
Having steeled himself for the final requirements, Salahn drew in a deep breath and focused on the ritual's completion. After a half-hour of chanting, a drop of dark liquid fell through the skylight and splattered onto a marble statue of the White Tigress. The statue melted, and the mix erupted into a spinning, coruscant cloud.
Chains of crimson energy bound the cloud as it congealed into the White Tigress. She roared, hissed, and clawed but couldn't break the chains. Grandmaster Salahn laughed with the thrill of victory, bounded up the dais, and stepped into the White Tigress. The goddess screamed as she lost cohesion. Her energies swirled around Salahn, striking and firing through him. Organs and skeleton glowed beneath transparent skin. Lightning blazed within his eyes and mouth and lashed his chest and back. Blood and smoke oozed from the welts.