Free The Lady by K. V. Johansen Page A

is nothing to that.” Talfan’s dark eyes were shining as if he’d brought her rubies. “The Blackdog killed the Lake-Lord. And now the goddess of the lake has sent him here? If we can rid ourselves of the Red Masks—”
    â€œIt was a bit more complicated, and it wasn’t—” Varro began.
    â€œBut the Red Masks aren’t priests; that’s the truth that’ll unravel all the lies—” cried the soldier.
    â€œTulip,” said Hadidu, grave in the kitchen doorway, a lean, hollow-eyed man, his black beard already greying about the mouth, though he couldn’t be any older than Varro, if that. Varro stepped aside for him.
    Tulip launched into her tale—report—again.
    Bare feet came pattering down the stairs.
    â€œMama—!”
    â€œNot now, Jasmel.”
    â€œBut, Mama—”
    â€œNot now, Ermina.”
    â€œMama, the temple’s on fire and the suburb now. We can see it from the roof.”
    A general rush for the rooftop followed, Talfan pausing on the way to gather up the baby.
    There was certainly a fiery glow to the northeast, though little haze of smoke. The smoke over the suburb also seemed mostly to have died away.
    â€œSomeone attacking the temple?” Tulip wondered aloud, but she seemed doubtful. “Jugurthos? No. He’s waiting for you before he does anything, Hadidu.”
    â€œHadidu can’t—” Talfan began.
    Tulip raised a hand. “No one’s letting me finish. Hadidu, listen.”
    Necromancy, that was what she told them of. Wizards murdered and enslaved as Red Masks, and a wizard capable of putting the Lady, goddess or devil, to flight. A monstrous dog and a wizard riding a demon bear.
    â€œEr,” said Varro. “A bear? A northern bear, tawny-gold, not brown?”
    â€œA golden bear, that’s what people said.”
    â€œA woman?”
    â€œThe wizard’s a woman.”
    Varro nodded. “And the Blackdog of Lissavakail?”
    â€œThat’s what they’re saying. You see what Jugurthos is thinking, Hadidu. The Lady is false; she’s a necromancer, no goddess. A devil , maybe, an incarnate devil. Ju thinks he can use this. Now, before the Lady rallies, whoever or whatever she is. The suburb’s ready to burn the city down to get at her, but if we can get them on our side, if we can raise the city for ourselves—Hassin at the Riverbend Gate will be with us—Ju has the testimony of the sandal-maker about his wife, proof of necromancy. He has the body. He thinks he can swing the other ward captains to our side and get the temple’s lapdogs out of the senate or call up a new one from the old family elders or something . . .”
    â€œWe can’t fight a devil,” Hadidu said. The gods are dead , he had said bitterly, only this morning. And he had wanted Varro to find some merchant’s company that would take him and his son south to the Five Cities, abandoning his goddess and the secrets he had been raised all his life to keep and serve.
    â€œLissavakail and Serakallash did fight a devil,” said Varro slowly. “And they won.” Was that hope, a little, like an uncoiling shoot of green, in Hadidu’s dark eyes? “We need to find the Blackdog.” Devils take all—devils, he was as mad as the rest of them. He should keep his mouth shut and drag his daughters off to the desert, with Talfan gagged on a camel till they’d gone too far to turn back. “I can. . . . Look, Talfan love, I’ve never told my friends your secrets, right? And I’ve never told you theirs.”
    â€œWhat secrets?” asked Talfan.
    S orry, Holla . “You know my friend Holla-Sayan? Great Gods, you know his daughter Pakdhala?”
    â€œThe one who married and stayed in Lissavakail last year.”
    â€œHer. Yes. Um. Pakdhala, ah, would be the goddess Attalissa of the Lissavakail. The lake, you know, not the town. Well,