Hammerfall by C. J. Cherryh Read Free Book Online

friendly. He asked himself how much more before his brain scrambled, before he had to scream. He bit his lip, bit it bloody.
    â€œDo you see lights and hear voices?” the Ila asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd what do these voices say?”
    â€œNothing of sense.” Could it be worse? He doubted he could keep his feet if he could gain them.
    â€œAnd the pictures? The images? The visions?”
    He fixed his sight on the Ila’s face, one stable point in a swinging world. It spun, and tilted, and stopped, over and over again. “Buildings,” he said. “Buildings. A tower.”
    â€œThis tower? The Beykaskh?”
    He shook his head to clear it. She might take that headshake for no, and it was the truth. He focused on her, only on her. Past the whiteness, she had a classic Lakhtanin face, thin and bow-nosed. Her lids were black-rimmed. The iris was dark. The eyes became pits into which sense could fall, and, no, she was not a child: the eyes alone said she was not a child.
    A gloved finger raised, forbidding, then curled itself across the lips, convenient resting place. “The son of my enemy. The one who burns my towns, steals from my treasury, robs my caravans, despoils my priests. What shall I make of you?”
    The pain had spread out of the joints and migrated to soft places. The noise in his ears roared and made her voice distant.
    â€œTain has given his son away,” the Ila mocked him, “so I take him. What shall I make of you, Marak Trin Tain? What shall I name you instead?”
    Mockery he would not endure. “General of your armies,” he said, courting their violence. “Captain of your guard.”
    She leaned back, lifted a hand, perhaps to forestall her officers. The au’it, who had written it all, ceased writing, poised the pen above the page of her book.
    The Ila’s hand described a circle in the air. The au’it shut the book and put down her pen.
    â€œNow without record,” the Ila said, “I ask you . . . where is this madness?”
    â€œIn the east,” he said without thinking, and astonished himself. It was in the east. Everything was in the east. It had no reason to be, but he knew it was, and it disturbed him to the heart.
    â€œYou wish to be a captain of my guard,” the Ila said. “I have a one that suffices. But a captain of explorers, perhaps, as there used to be, before there were the tribes. So you are. I name you to ride out for me and find the source of the madness. I name you to go where the mad go when they wander out, and find out why they turn to the east. I name you to return to me and to report whatever you learn. And if you return to me and report the truth, I will give you a gift. You will rule Kais Tain.”
    A stir of utter dismay went through the captains.
    He himself did not believe it.
    â€œI have set my seal on Kais Tain,” the Ila said, “and have all persons therein under that seal. Write it!” she said, and the au’it wet her pen and wrote. “They live or they die as you please me, and after you do my will, they live or they die as they please you. What other reward do you wish for your service?”
    Was he not to die? He searched all the crevices of that utterance, looking for the reason in what he heard.
    Was he not to die? And did the Ila make a barbed joke, and had the au’it written it in the book as if it were the truth, and the law?
    The pain made it difficult to think. The roaring made it difficult to hear anything sensible.
    â€œIs that enough?” the Ila asked him, as if she bargained in a market. “Do you agree to my terms?”
    He could not think on his knees. He struggled to his feet. Fire shot up and down the bones. Defying it, he straightened his back, and fire ran there, too.
    â€œMy mother,” he said. “Now. My sister. I want them safe from Tain.”
    The Ila moved a vertical finger against her lips and gazed at