CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WELL-LAID PLANS
"Locke, Banon has called a meeting," said Terra. "We have to go."
And so their happy together was ended. They issued from Locke's cabin in a solemn procession, partly because the wind bowed their heads and the deep snow kept their eyes on their steps, and partly because they all sensed that grim events were drawing near. They all had heavy hearts.
Terra followed Locke, walking in his footsteps as best she could, as she remembered doing once before—but this time their trek led them into Narshe, not away from it. She would always remember Narshe as giant steps going up the mountain. She looked now at the peak, obscured by a wreath of dark clouds. Every now and again lightning licked the summit and revealed its shape, a fell and ominous cone. When Terra looked upon that sight, and thought of the Esper at the top—brewing perhaps a second doom, one which might spell her annihilation—all her previous fears seemed as hollow thoughts. All her Dread, all her loneliness, all her nameless fears came upon her a-hundredfold. Was she not going to her death? Was this not her funeral procession?
If Terra had run into a solid and unmovable force, she could not have stopped more suddenly. She dropped to her knees with a gasp.
"Terra, my dear, what's wrong?" Arvis helped her to her feet. Her breath was short. Her mind reeled, and for a moment she feared that her insanity might return. But between great pangs of confusion and exhaustion, she knew clarity.
"Just help me walk. It will be over soon," she said.
Thus she walked with Arvis' support, as frail and thin as he had become since they last met. But she was so small that she could not have been a great burden. It seemed to give him pleasure to serve her. She was too overcome by weariness to care that Locke shot back worried looks, and Celes sly and curious glances.
Without knowing why, Terra drew the hood of her cloak over her head. Eventually the seizures abated so that she could walk unsupported, but now, so near the Dread Mountain, a dull weight, a quiet oppression hung on her mind. It lifted for nothing. Prayer only lessened it for a while, but prayer was wearisome. Blind, she trod the snow and looked not again at the terrible peak, but heard rumblings of thunder—the growing wrath of gods, she thought.
In such a state of mind she climbed—or rather was led—up the climbing streets of Narshe. Houses, built out of the very rock, with fires aglow inside, jutted out of the unequal ground on every side. When she turned her head, she saw onlookers stop in the street to gaze at the procession, some in wonder, many with unfriendly looks. It appeared to her that they were unwelcome guests or an unhappy interruption in the lives of the people. Terra smiled on them with love and pity, for if they only knew what had been done on their behalf and what still remained to be done, if they only knew what was at stake, if they knew what powers were soon to converge on this unlikely place, all their scorn would turn to gratitude, their contempt to love. It is astonishing how cosmic affairs can be put second to matters of domestic tranquility. If they only knew how all their dreams of happiness rested on the brink of destruction, how changed they would be!—Terra thought. How all their petty complaints, vices, and burdens would disappear!
Locke led them to a large house, built on a hill. Two guards were posted at the front doors, one of which Terra recognized as a Returner. When they saw Locke and Arvis, they let them pass, though they looked doubtfully at Terra and Celes. They must have looked suspicious—two women in white cloaks, hoods covering their faces.
Even inside Terra did not remove her hood, for somehow it gave her comfort and dulled her headache. A servant led them through many halls and rooms. At the last room he stopped and indicated that they should go in, then retired. Terra heard voices inside, one of them the low rumbling tones of Banon. They entered.
Terra saw that they were in a kind of study. A fire was burning. Men were standing in the middle of the room—Banon, Edgar, and some other Returners on one side, and some old men on the other. Banon greeted Arvis and Locke, and the four of them joined the Returners behind him.
Banon spoke to the elder, seeming to pick up where he'd left off: "The Emperor has tolerated your liberty only because your mines are so profitable, and he has been content merely to tax you. But now that he knows of the Esper, he will exert all his power to seize it. Your city will be nothing more than an imperial garrison by the end of the year.
"Now if you join us, we have recruited men from all over the world to make our stand at Narshe. If the Emperor were to seize the Esper, his power would be absolute, and his reign would never end. Surely he seeks immortality.
"This is our last best chance to throw off the yoke of tyranny. Join us! Or the Emperor's dogs will be at your doorstep, and you will have no allies to call to your aid. Trouble is coming; there's no stopping it now."
"If trouble has come upon us," retorted the elder, "it is you who have brought it! Do you think I don't know that your little uprising is camped right outside Narshe's walls? You say that battle is inevitable, but it strikes me that we could just as easily expel all of you and show the Emperor that we seek only peace.
"And what do we care whether the Emperor wants the Esper? We do not meddle in the affairs of kings and gods. If you were an older man, you would be wise. If you were not a rabble-rouser, you would not bring the Emperor's wrath upon your head, and then be forced to plead with peace-loving peoples to deliver you from his hand."
"Fool!" barked Banon. "If you love your people more than your own stomach, you will repulse the Empire while you can, and you will accept aid when it comes to you from afar. Over hard seas and through deadly perils, these men have come to protect your city. You think your gold can slake the Emperor's lust forever? Look at the works of this Empire you serve in your cowardice. They burned Maranda to the ground, poisoned the people of Doma, wiped out the very memory of peoples from Middan Erd. Every city and nation that panders to Emperor Gestaul—vile submission!—is full of rape, murder, cruelty, and all kinds of wickedness!"
The elder was about to respond when he was stopped by his fellows.
"We will now confer on this matter," said one of the other elders. "Please wait outside while we make our judgment." Banon and the others retired to an adjoining room.
"Be alert, men," said Banon when they were alone. "I think they're planning on having us killed unless they decide to make us their allies." Terra was still too incoherent and oppressed by her proximity to the Mountain Summit to be much concerned. She had survived worse perils.
Minutes passed. Finally the house servant came in and told them that they had been summoned.
When they returned, they found the elders much changed. The man who had argued with Banon sat down in a corner with a grim, defeated look. The man who had stopped him and called the others to council stood to meet them.
"Forgive our hesitation, dear friends," he said graciously. "It is a weighty matter to go to war, and a weightier one to oppose the Empire. You are only too right: we have been ruled by our fears, and up till now have been content merely to part with some of the bounty of our mines. But if, as you say, the Emperor is bent on possessing the Esper, then Narshe's neck is soon for the yoke of slavery. We will gladly accept your help. Now let us take council together to decide the best course for defending our city against so great a siege. How many men have you?"
"Five hundred encamped outside Narshe's walls, and many more on the way," said Banon. "I've sent out messengers to mobilize forces in Kohlingen, Jidoor, and Nikeah. I expect them any hour."
Then Edgar: "I sent letters and my signet ring with the Returners going to Kohlingen. They should find my castle a mile south of the city. Two hundred mounted men should be on their way."
"I thought Figaro Castle lay in the desert to the south?" replied the elder. "Did you build another?"
"Not exactly." Edgar smiled and looked at Terra.
"What is more," said Banon, "we have two magitek knights on our side," (Two? thought Terra), "who know how to pilot imperial tanks. The Emperor is sure to send tanks along with a few battalions, since he knows that there is not enough food to support great numbers, nor space, so narrow a valley as we are in. And the cold and the altitude would be sure to claim many of his men, so used as they are to the ease and luxury afforded them by conquered peoples."
The elder was surprised at the mention of magitek knights. "Who are these knights you speak of? We have heard that they are very great warriors, possessing strange powers."
At an affirming look from Banon, Terra stepped forward and pulled back her hood, though by doing so her headache perceptively increased. Celes also stepped forward, which caused Terra to wonder.
"This is Captain Terra and Lieutenant Celes," said Banon.
One of the other elders stared at Terra in fear and indignation. "I know you!" he said. "You're the witch who came here a twelvemonth ago! You and your troops demanded to be taken to the Esper, and when my son, the chief marshal, refused, you raised your hand at him and he caught fire. Writhing in the snow I watched my own son burned alive before my very eyes, and nothing could put out the flames until you lowered your hand." He showed his hands, which bore burn scars. Terra was in tears, and her heart was grieved. "How dare you come back here—Witch!—with the semblance of repentance!"
"Hold, Masori," said the spokesman.
Here Arvis came forward, hobbling on his cane. He put his shaking hand on Terra's shoulder to comfort her (which it did), and spoke words of wisdom and consolation.
"You all know who I am," he said. "I was once head of this council, back in the days when Narshe still opposed the Empire. I had a wife and five sons whom I loved very much. All five of my sons were killed in the Battle of Cormac River. They died heroically, which is as good a death as can be expected in this world. Still there has been far too much death and grief already, and there promises to be much more before the end. Grief over our sons killed my wife.
"After the Battle, a defeated Narshe was forced to come to terms with their new master. My heart was full of vengeance and hatred (which is a weary way to live, I can tell you), and I resigned from the council. I joined Banon and his lot.
"Then years later I heard a strange tale. A witch from the empire had been destroyed—destroyed, yet somehow she lived still—in an encounter with the god atop this mountain. This same witch—as you call her—was brought to me, and I was asked to pass judgment on her. My hand found my knife, but when I looked in her lost and searching eyes, even as she was raving in the grip of fever, all my hatred turned to love, and I called her 'daughter.'" Arvis took Terra's hands and kissed them. "I have now done what no man I know has ever done: I have kissed the very hands that took my family from me. Yes, it was Terra who killed my five sons."
Everyone gasped. Terra wept bitterly and trembled from head to foot. Astonishment sat on their faces. Locke's mouth dropped.
"If anyone has reason to despise this woman, it is I," continued Arvis. "And yet I love her as my own daughter. She is changed, as you would see if you only knew her. I believe that all her life she was deceived. And yet, in spite of all the evil she has done, the gods spared her life. Who now will condemn one on whom the gods have not passed judgment? Or if there is still wrath that must be spent, let it be spent on me, old and infirm and grave-bound as I am, rather than on this woman."
There was a tear in even the most stalwart faces. The elder who had accused Terra sat down without a word as one thunderstruck. Terra ever afterwards looked upon this as the moment she first knew love.
