The Lady by K. V. Johansen Page A

the city walls before, except for this expedition east to Praitan they’re talking of. All this death and burning out there today, that was her looking for you, wasn’t it?”
    â€œShe was looking for Ivah and Nour.”
    â€œSame thing. You’re the one took them from her, ya?”
    â€œYou’d have left them to die?”
    â€œWhat were you doing in the temple in the first place? No. Never mind. I don’t care. But you began this, and you can’t just skulk off to the deserts pretending you didn’t and leave us to—”
    â€œWhat us? ”
    â€œTalfan. My wife. She’s, look, you know how Attalissa’s temple went underground when Tamghat came? Same thing here. But they were all children. A couple of youths hardly men and a handful of children, hiding and keeping faith with their gods best they could. Waiting for the Old Great Gods alone knew what. And now they think it’s come, the time. In you. They’ve seen that the Red Masks can be faced and killed, they’ve seen the Lady run, and they’re going to follow through on it. But if you abandon them, they’re all going to die. You did all that, out there—” Varro waved a hand towards the door, “—for Ivah ? Then you can’t leave decent folk to be murdered by the Lady for something you’ve done.”
    â€œI can’t kill the Lady, if that’s what you’re asking.”
    â€œShe fled you.”
    â€œShe didn’t need to.”
    â€œShe obviously doesn’t know that. Look, you know what they’re thinking now, Talfan and Master Hadidu, the priest of Ilbialla? They’re thinking that we—they—have the gods on their side. The Old Great Gods have given them a sign that their time has come.”
    â€œYou’re not serious! You can’t tell them that.”
    â€œI don’t need to. The great wizard—” his lip curled at Ivah, “—and her demons have proven it. You’re a demon now, by the way.”
    Holla-Sayan just shut his eyes. The man looked done in. Well, he’d come through the thick of the past day’s battle and been fighting Red Masks in the temple before that. And even Ivah—no, Varro did not, would not pity her. But she looked pathetic. She was wrapped in a too-large coat, snuggled into Holla-Sayan’s side like a child to her parent, only a bit of face poking out, ragged-nailed hands clenched up tight on her lap. She looked aged and frail, the golden-brown of her skin grey-hued and lined, marked with dark scabs from earlier injury, wisps of her once-wealth of midnight hair now cropped and clinging.
    The real demon watched him watching them, black eyes thoughtful.
    â€œIvah is Ghatai’s daughter,” Mikki said softly. “Did you know?”
    Tamghat’s daughter? That shocked Varro. “It’s no excuse,” he protested. “She tried to murder my friend. She had her hearth-woman cut his throat.”
    â€œI know. But it is an explanation. Now she leaves her father behind and grows into something else.”
    â€œDoes that make her a devil too?” Better to cut her throat now, while she slept helpless, in that case.
    â€œI doubt it.”
    Holla-Sayan opened his eyes. Ah, damn his tongue for a fool’s, Holla’d finally succeeded in getting barren Gaguush in a family way, right. That’s all he needed, to be talking of unnatural halfbreeds and making the man fear she’d give birth to puppies. Varro eyed Mikki, whose father had been human, his mother a bear-demon. That . . . no, he didn’t want to picture how that came about.
    â€œWhat do you want?” Holla-Sayan asked.
    â€œGo talk to Master Hadidu. He sent me to find you, to ask you to come to him. Talk to him, before you decide to pretend all this is nothing to do with you, all right?”
    â€œAnd what’s your place in it, Varro? You weren’t out in the suburb