Those wish-fulfilling fantasies had a power of their own, though, as he discovered one day when Dala met his eye with a shy smile, when he gazed at her while he held a perfectly formed mental image of their naked limbs entwined in a tangle of sheets—and she reached out, took his hand, and led him to her room on a clear, hot summer's afternoon, and took his virginity with exactly that same shy smile.
That had been the sweet brush of his destiny's lips, as well.
He'd entered his novitiate at fourteen, using the advanced education available only at the Monastic Embassy to sharpen his powers; the Esoteric training of both body and mind gave him the self-discipline to ruthlessly strangle those desires that crippled his gift. Now he used his mind as another friar might wield a sword: as a weapon, sworn in the service of the Human Future.
At twenty-five, he was the youngest full Ambassador in the Monasteries' six-hundred-year history—and not even the Council of Brothers could guess how much their decision might have been influenced by the subtle power of a young friar's dreams.
Now in Thorncleft a haze began to obscure his vision, as though he peered through a twisty veil of gauze, while the great doors of the hall swung wide and in marched a double column of the Artan Guards, their curious springless pellet bows held at ready aslant their scarlet-armored chests. They spread out into the wide arc of an honor guard.
The elves gazed at them with bald curiosity, not yet aware of their import. Lord Kithin, for his part, sprang hastily from the Gilt Throne and dropped to one knee, inclining his head to welcome the Artan Viceroy, Vinson Garrette. Lord Kithin could be trusted only to handle situations of purely ceremonial nature. No business of import could be conducted in Transdeia without the presence of the representative of this land's true rulers.
Raithe's heart began to pound.
Garrette seemed to speak cordially to the elves as he walked among them. Raithe felt a surge of anger at the mental haze that prevented him from fully experiencing the meeting—if he could only hear what Garrette said, perhaps he could understand the import of these legates. He burned for that understanding.
With a need as sharp and immediate as hunger to a starving man, he ached to understand where, in all this, was the connection to Caine.
But his sudden swell of desire ruptured his concentration and scattered his vision; now he saw only the view from this window in the half-completed embassy. He snarled at himself, then shut his eyes, laid his hand across them, and forced himself to concentrate once more. He slowed his breathing, a measured count of nine to inhale, hold for three, exhale for twelve, and the Hall of State began to coalesce once more inside his skull.
"Headache, Master Ambassador?" asked a greasily solicitous voice nearby. "Would you like a cup of willowbark tea? I'm having one."
Raithe's view of the hall vanished as he opened his eyes and glared at Ptolan, the fledgling embassy's Master Householder, a fat and perpetually befuddled Exoteric who seemed perfectly content to pass his fading years humming tunelessly to himself and tending the last few strands of his unruly steel-spring hair. Nolan stood in the archway, not too far from the small iron stove he kept lit beside his desk for warmth—his sluggish nature made even this late summer afternoon too chill for his sagging, repellently pale flesh. He smiled at Raithe expectantly as he poured water into a teapot from a small brass carafe.
"Thank you," Raithe said icily, "no."
"It'll put a little color in your cheeks," Ptolan said, in what the fat fool must have imagined was an encouraging tone. His own cheeks sported blotches red as a whore's mouth. "Two brew as easy as one, y'know. It's a, well, a sharing, y'know? Brotherhood and all that. I know you began as an Esoteric, but we in the public services do things a bit differently ..."
Instead of a reply, Raithe gave him a chilly stare—one of those steady bleached-out gazes that he used to intimidate weaker men. Ptolan swallowed and looked away, chuckling nervously in the back of his throat. "Please yourself, haha, you usually do, I suppose. I'll, ah, I'll just-" He rubbed his hands together, and chuckled some more. "I'll just, ah, go ahead for two, and if you change your mind—"
"Don't bother—" Raithe began.
"Oh, it's no bother—"
"I was saying—" He bared his teeth. "—don't bother me."
He set his head against the uncomfortable scrollwork of the chair's high back and shut his eyes. "Go away."
For a brutally long moment, the only image he could summon was of Ptolan standing in the archway, his slack thick-lipped mouth opening and closing with the soundless dismay of a hungry chick. Then hesitant footfalls faded toward the outer chamber, and Raithe regulated his breathing; soon, the interior of the Hall of State took hazy shape once more.
Though Garrette stood beside the Gilt Throne, where Lord Kithin sat, there was no question as to who was the true ruler of Transdeia. The Artan Viceroy projected a calm authority that was unmistakable; Lord Kithin himself never spoke without first glancing to Garrette to search his long gaunt face for any sign of disapproval.
Still Raithe's concentration was too scattered to pick up their words, but his hazy perception of Garrette's face let him read one word from the Viceroy's lips: Diamondwell.
Raithe nodded to himself and let his vision dissolve into a random scattering of eyelights. So the Mithondionne legates had come about Diamondwell; he had warned Garrette that Mithondion would respond—all subs stick together, in the end—but the Viceroy had firmly refused to worry about that possibility until it presented itself.
Diamondwell had been a dwarfish reservation in the Transdeian hills that had styled itself, with typical subhuman arrogance, as a "freehold." The trouble had begun nearly a year ago—before Raithe had been posted here as Ambassador—when the dwarfs' children and elderly began to fall ill. Having been born and bred to mining, the dwarfs had soon recognized the symptoms of metals poisoning. Viceroy Garrette himself had generously—overgenerously, in Raithe's considered opinion—ordered an investigation, using Artan resources to find the cause. When this cause turned out to be runoff from Artan smelters leaching into the Diamondwell groundwater, Garrette—again overgenerously—had offered to resettle the dwarfs in a new reservation, higher in the mountains and farther away from the Artan mining operations.
The dwarfs had refused, citing some sentimentalized twaddle about their ancestral lands. They had instead chosen, foolishly, to begin a guerrilla campaign of sabotage against the Artan mining machinery and smelting plants, hoping to make mining and smelting in those hills so expensive that the Artans would move their operations, instead. They had failed in the most basic principle of warfare: Know your enemy.
Artan military technology was even more advanced than their mining technology; to march into Diamondwell and arrest the entire population turned out to be much less expensive than moving the mining operations would have been. Those who came peacefully had been rewarded with tasks in the mines, clean food and water, and comfortable cots on which to rest; those who resisted had been slaughtered like the animals they were.
It had been a messy situation, one that Raithe privately believed could have been much more simply resolved: merely adding a more potent poison to the Diamondwell groundwater would have settled the issue with great swiftness and economy. Garrette's pretense of good nature and helpfulness, the facade of concern for the dwarfs' troubles he had presented, had only made the situation worse: it had emboldened the dwarfs, and allowed them to wreak considerable havoc upon the mines before they were finally contained.
Raithe imagined that something similar was going on in the Hall of State even now. Garrette was probably hemming and hawing, trying to allay any suspicions the elvish legates had developed; he couldn't understand how much trouble he was already in. He had no conception of the power that Mithondion still could wield if a war should come—of course, conversely, neither did the Mithondionne elves have any idea of the power of the Artan rulers of Transdeia.
It seemed to Raithe that there was a vast opportuni
ty here—but opportunity for what, and how should he approach grasping it?
Once he understood how all this related to Caine, he would know what to do.
2
Anyone who is of a thoughtful, philosophical cast of mind will occasionally be struck by the appearance of certain organizing principles of history. The form these principles seem to take inevitably depends upon one's specific obsession. For a monarchist, history might be a story of the clash of great leaders; for a socialist, history is a struggle of classes in economic civil war. An agriculturalist sees the dynamic of populations, land, and availability of food; a philosopher might speak of the will to power or the will to synthesis; a theologian of the will of God. Raithe was not by nature a thoughtful man, but the events of his time had conspired to make him aware of one of these vast organizing principles, one so powerfully obvious that he was consistently amazed that no one but him seemed aware of it.
A lifetime ago—when he had been a young, hopeful, passionately dedicated friar, just entering the Esoteric Service in Ankhana—that governing principle of history had intervened and shattered Raithe like overfired pottery. Piece by piece, he had rebuilt—reforged--himself, but the man who emerged from that crucible was no longer Raithe of Ankhana, though he still answered to that name.
In those days, Creele of Garthan Hold had been the Ambassador to Ankhana. Raithe could still see him as clearly as though he stood before him now: a man of grace and beauty, eyes constantly sparkling with his extraordinary wit, a brilliant thinker, an intellect like fire leaping from root to branch. Ambassador Creele had taken an interest in young Raithe, had made clear that his career was upward bound. Creele had encouraged Raithe in his study of the Esoteric arts of fighting and espionage, and the skills of mind that were now his greatest weapon.
Raithe had watched in helpless horror as Creele had died by Caine's hand.
On that day, Raithe had sworn to Caine's face that there was no place the murderer could hide, to escape Monastic vengeance. But after Creele's murder, the Ambassadorial post has been taken by that plodding hypocrite Damon, who had muddied and confused the issue before the Council of Brothers—not that it had mattered, in the end; for by that time, Caine was widely supposed to be dead.
Creele's murder had been the opening tap of Raithe's destruction; like the first rap of a carpenter's hammer, it had seated the nail firmly for a single, final blow. Because Creele had died that day—because the embassy had been in great turmoil—Raithe had been on extra duty on that fateful noon five days later. He had been sitting at a writing table in the scriptorium, surrounded by spineless Exoterics, while he painstakingly lettered the fifth copy of his report on Creele's murder.
If Caine hadn't murdered Creele, Raithe would have been in Victory Stadium: beside his father, the honest, pious blacksmith, who'd been proud of his position as the house farrier at Janner's Livery; beside his mother, the quiet, faithful wife and homemaker whose loving arms had always circled Raithe like a mystic ring against the hurts of the world.
His parents had been early converts to the Church of the Beloved Children; his mother, especially, had been passionately devoted to Ma'elKoth. And so of course they both had stood cheering in the stands, when Ma'elKoth's procession had entered Victory Stadium. Cheering—until the riot had begun, and the cheers had turned to screams.
If Raithe had been there, he would have fought for them. He would have saved them. But he wasn't there. Because of Caine.
His parents died in the riot. Slaughtered like animals.
Because of Caine.
Because of Caine, he had reforged himself into a weapon.
In the years that followed he had devoted himself to the study of Caine and his people, the alien race of Aktiri. He became the Monasteries' leading expert not only on Caine, but on the Aktiri and their world. It had been Raithe himself who had discovered the origin of the mysterious Artans, the outlanders who ruled Transdeia; shortly thereafter, Raithe had persuaded the Council of Brothers to make him the first Ambassador to the Artan court.
The world believed what the Church told them, that Caine had died on the sand at Victory Stadium. Raithe knew better. Somewhere, somehow, the murderer of his parents lived in the smug enjoyment of his rancid victory; Raithe could see him in his dreams. And in every dream, Raithe renewed his promise.
I will teach you my name.
He would teach the world his name; but the name he would teach it was not Raithe. The name Raithe was now a mask, a costume he wore to conceal his true face. Raithe had been brittle, fragile enough to shatter under a single sharp blow—a bit of pottery, no more. The man who now wore his face was a weapon, a blade of tempered steel gleaming from the forge. Only in his. deepest, most cherished dream of dreams, in the stone: he whispered to himself in the darkest midnights, when his ghosts all crowded round his heart, did he dare to call himself by his true name.
He had become the Caineslayer.
Childish? He knew it was—but he had been a child when he'd sworn himself to it. Now, seven years later, he could make his cheeks burn merely by imagining the humiliation of anyone ever learning how much he still cherished this adolescent melodrama . . . but that only made him clutch it ever more tightly to his heart.
In swearing himself to that name, he had made a vow that would never be broken. Now he kept perfect vigilance, waiting.
In comparing Caine's history to those of others in the Monastic Archives, he had discovered what he'd come to think of as Caine's defining characteristic. In each of his recorded endeavors, from the smallest assassination to the epic undertaking that had crushed the Khulan Horde at Ceraeno, there would always come a fulcrum, one defining point of balance, where a mere shift of Caine's weight toppled history in an unexpected direction.
Caine was, somehow, behind every twist of history in Raithe's short lifetime. This lesson had been burned into him like a brand upon the inside of his skull.
How had the Empire come to be? Caine saved Ankhana at Ceraeno, and Ma'elKoth triumphed over the superior forces of Lipke in the Plains War. How had Ma'elKoth come to be? Caine delivered up unto Ma'elKoth the crown of Dal'Kannith. How had Raithe come to be the Caineslayer? How had the Caineslayer come to be the Monastic Ambassador to the Artans?
The answer to every question led back to Caine.
Raithe had made it his personal rule of thumb, as private as his darkest fantasies, never to act until he understood how an event was connected to Caine. This rule had been his guidepost of destiny for nearly seven years. The connection might be distant, tenuous, tortuous—but it had always been there. This was how he maintained his perfect vigilance.
This was no longer a matter of vengeance; oh, certainly, he had started along this path seeking revenge, but revenge was a crippling desire, one of those that he had sloughed away like a snake shedding its skin. Caine need not be punished. He must be extinguished.
It wasn't personal, not anymore.
After all, was not Caine as much a pawn of destiny as Raithe himself? Caine had not intended to kill his parents; it had been purely an act of fate: as though all the universe conspired to create the Caineslayer.
Raithe thought of himself, of his mission—of his dream of the Caineslayer—as a metaphor, now; just as Caine had become a metaphor. To the Church of the Beloved Children of Ma'elKoth, Caine was the Prince of Chaos, the Enemy of God. He had become a symbol for all of humanity's basest instincts of low selfishness, greed, and aggression; a symbol for everything against which stood the Church. He represented that part of human nature that set man against man, woman against woman, the selfdestructive bloody-mindedness that was the single greatest threat to the Human Future.
This was the fundamental error of the Church: by elevating Caine to the status of the Enemy of God, they gave power to his legend. Raithe was a loyal elKothan himself, as his parents had been; he found it astonishing that the Church would admit of anyone or anything that could oppose the power of Ma'elKoth. Though it was Church doctrine th
at Caine's opposition to God had, against his will, served the greater glory of Ma'elKoth, Raithe sometimes suspected that it might be the other way around.
Caine was slippery that way.
So all this led to a single, simple terminus. To act properly on this matter of the Mithondionne legates, he had to know: Where was the connection to Caine?
For one awful, dizzying moment, he wondered if perhaps there might not be any connection to Caine at all; black doubt yawned beneath him, and only a frantic mental scramble brought him back from a lethal fall. There was a connection. There would be. And he would find it. He had to.
It was his destiny.
3
"Mmm, Master Raithe?" The greasy voice of Ptolan once again shattered his concentration.
Raithe opened his eyes; full night stared back at him through the open window, spangled with hazy stars. How many hours had he sat here, dozing away his opportunity? He twisted, rising from his chair, suddenly red-faced with fury. "Rot your guts, Ptolan—I told you not to bother—"
"Sorry, uh, sorry, Brother, really I am—but Brother Talle has come up saying the lamp on the Artan Mirror glows, and your instructions were that, no matter what you're doing, or what time of day it might be, or—"
"All right," Raithe snarled. "Jhantho's Faith, can't you shut up? I'm on my way."
4
Damon of Jhanthogen Bluff, the-Acting Monastic Ambassador to the Infinite Court, looked out over the teeming ballroom and allowed himself to feel moderately pleased. The orchestra played with spectacular skill; across the broad expanse of dance floor hundreds of couples swayed, while through the crowded fringe and the smaller side rooms wove dozens of young, white-robed friars bearing trays of cocktails and appetizers. The general light came from no specific source, making the air itself seem to glow and pulse gently in time with the rhythm of the waltz, casting a glamour subtler and more enticing than mere lamp flame—making the men more dashing, the women more beautiful, the setting absolutely flawless.