Book 2 The Gods of Light and Liars

Chapter Eighteen: Stalkers

The wine was a good excuse to disappear before the Earth Archon got really drunk. Hawk escaped to the baggage train, where her and the Light Archon's Fleet-Hares had been brought. She waited until she'd reached the Hares before breaking down completely. She probably could have held things together longer if the Hares hadn't been so insanely soft, and if their two hadn't been cuddled together. They didn't move much when she arrived, either. She sank into their soft bulk, greeting curious lips with her empty fingers. They moved their long necks to bring their faces nearer hers...and she just began to sob, openly, her face buried in the creature's long, soft fur.

That was where the Archon found her when he finally chose to escape Earth's nightly orgy...or whatever it was she did in the tent tonight. Hawk hoped it was an orgy, and that everyone involved had a very good time. She suspected it was otherwise, that the altar to Nasheth drank deep and long of blood tonight. The smell of it covered the Archon of Light. The stench of burnt things, the cloying scent of incense that tried to cover it. She'd only been asleep for...well, probably a few hours by this point.

The Archon was very drunk. He greeted her apology with a shushing finger, and he finished the last verse of a song she could not understand before collapsing across the legs of his own Hare. "Ah, fair damsel. What a quandary you have put us in."

"It seemed like the smartest thing I could do. She was trying to trap me."

"And she managed it. I'm not faulting you, Hawk-of-the-West. No one wins against her when she has her mind set against you. You slipped the net she set for you using the one weapon neither of us expected."

After waiting a moment for him to finish, she said, "What was it?"

"What?" The ivory mask jerked, then looked up at her. "What was what?"

"The weapon I used against the Earth-Archon."

"Oh. That. Your compassion, of course. She expected you to insult her, which she could use against you as an insult to her God. Or you could have commiserated with her and said her deformity was terrible, which she could use against you as an insult to her God. Or you could have praised her beauty, which she would have known was a lie, and she could use that against you, and so on. Instead of doing either, you recognized her pain, and managed to offer comfort without condemnation or judgement. You did not lie. You did not blaspheme. And she cannot even be angry with you, because I think no one has said such a thing to her since before Nasheth touched her face." He sighed. "You made her see you as worthy, and not just a toy I brought along for my amusement. Now she knows you have value, and she covets valuable things. Pretty things, above all, but she'll settle for value and use.

"No matter. We have two days before we reach Nasheth's seat. Perhaps we can find an escape for you between now and then."

And the Archon of Light fell into a drunken sleep with those as his final words.

***

They proved to be the opposite of prophetic. The next day Hawk awoke to a guard of green and gold robes, blades not quite bared but hostile enough to send a clear message: the Earth Archon was watching.

The Light Archon set about immediately testing the boundaries of their new watchmen, and those boundaries proved to be damn near adamant. One guard was with Hawk at all times, even when she excused herself to use the latrine. Another followed the Archon of Light around like a puppy, eagerly listening to every word and certainly appealing to the man's rather visible vanity. The man could no more abuse a potential student than Hawk could slip the burly swordsman she'd been stuck with.

The Archon could order them out of earshot, however, and that motivated them both to have the Hares saddled and ready to ride as soon as possible. But when that was done, their guards took charge of the Hares and moved them to the forefront of the green procession. "As is due your station," the Archon of Light was told. So the Archon simply grabbed Hawk and pulled her aside for a moment.