Messages
Why was it ordered so? Why should the entwining of two hearts'
melodies give birth to the destruction of the Firstborn and the
People, too? The oldest voices cannot say. When Crooked spoke of
it he called it "The Narrowing of the Way," and likened it to the
point of a blade, which cuts where it is sharpest and which cannot
shed blood without dividing Might Be from Is.
— from One Hundred Considerations out of the Qar's Book of Regret
CHAVEN SEEMED A LITTLE BETTER with the cup of hot blueroot tea in his bandaged hands, but he was still shaking like a man with fever. "What is all this about?" Chert demanded. "Your pardon, but you acted like a madman while we were in your house. What is happening?" "No. No, I cannot tell you. I am ashamed."
"You owe us at least that much," Chert said. "We have taken you in-you, a wanted fugitive. If you are found here by the Tollys, we will all be thrown into the big folk's stronghold. How long do you think before one of our neigh¬bors sees you? It has been nearly impossible, sneaking you in and out by night." "Chert, leave the man alone," Opal growled at him, although she too looked frightened: the physician and Chert had come through the door with the harried look of two men chased by wolves. "It's not his fault he's fallen on the wrong side of those dreadful people."
"Ah, but it is my fault that I trusted one I should not." Chaven took a shaky sip of tea."But how could Okros know of it? That was the one thing I never showed him-never showed anyone!"
"What is the one thing?" Chert had never seen the physician like this, trembling and weeping like a small child-not even after his escape from death and the horrors of Queen Anissa's chambers.
"Not so loud," Opal said, quietly but fiercely. "You'll wake the boy."
As if we did not have enough troubles already, Chert thought. Two of the big folk in my house, one a grown man, both of them half mad. Just feeding them will kill us long before the castle guards come for us. Not to mention the uncom¬fortable and unfamiliar brightness of having to burn lamps at all hours to make Chaven and his weak, uplander eyes more comfortable. "You owe us some explanation, sir," Chert said stubbornly. "We are your friends-and not the kind who have betrayed you."
"You are right, of course." Chaven took another sip of tea and stared at the floor. "You have risked your lives for me. Oh, I am wretched- wretched!"
Chert let out a hiss of air. He was losing his patience. Just before he got up in frustration and walked out of the main room, Chaven raised one of his wounded hands.
"Peace, friend," he said. "I will try to explain, although I think you will not care for me so much once you have heard my story. Still, it would only be what I deserved…"
Chert sat down, shared a glance with Opal. She leaned forward and filled the physician's cup with blueroot tea. "Speak, then." Despite his curiosity, Chert hoped it would not be a long story. He had already been up half the night and was so weary he could barely keep his eyes open.
"I have… I had… an… object. A mirror. You heard Okros talk of captromancy-a clumsy word that means mirror-scrying. It is an art, an art with many depths and strange turnings, and a long, mysterious history."
"Mirror-scrying?" Opal asked. "Do you mean reading fortunes?" She re¬filled her own teacup and put her elbows on the table, listening carefully.
"More than that-far more." Chaven sighed. "There is a book. You likely have not heard of it, although in certain circles it is famous. Ximander's Book, it is called, but those who have seen it say it is merely part of a larger work, something called The Book of Regret, which was written by the fairy folk-the Qar, as they call themselves. Ximander was a mantis, a priest of Kupilas the Healer in the old days of the Hierosoline Empire, and he is said
In have received die writings from a homeless wanderer who died in the temple."
Chert shifted impatiently. This might be the kind of thing that fascinated Chaven, but he was having trouble making sense of it. "Yes? And this book taught you mirror-scrying?"
"I have never seen it-it has been lost for years. But my master, Kaspar I)ye!os, had either seen it or a copy of it when he was young-he would never tell me-and much of what he taught me came from those infamous pages. Ximander's Book tells us that the gods gave us three great gifts-fire, shouma, and mirror-wisdom…"
"Shouma? What is that?"
"A drink-some call it the gods' nectar. It breeds visions, but sometimes madness or even death, too. For centuries it was used in special ceremonies in the temples and palaces of Eion, for those who wished to become closer to the gods. It is said that just as wine makes mortals drunk, shouma makes the gods themselves drunk. It is so powerful that it is not used anymore, or at least the priests of our modern day mix only the tiniest bit into their cer¬emonial wine, and some say that it is not the true, potent shouma anymore, that the knowledge of making that has been lost. In the old days, many young priests used to die in shouma ecstasies at their first investiture…" He trailed off. "Forgive me. I have spent my life studying these things and I for¬get that not all are as interested as me."
"You were going to speak of mirrors," Opal reminded him firmly. "That was what you said. Mirrors."
"Yes, of course. And despite my seemingly wandering thoughts, that is the subject closest to my heart just now. The last of the gods' great gifts- mirror-wisdom. Captromancy.
"I will not task you with listening to much mirror-lore. Much is what seems like mere folktales, fairy stories to help the initiated remember com¬plicated rituals-or at least so I believe. But what cannot be argued is that with proper training and preparation mirrors can be used hot for reflection of what is before them, but as portals-windows, certainly, and some even claim as doors-to other worlds."
Chert shook his head. "What does that mean-other worlds? What other worlds?"
"In the old days," the physician said, "men thought that the gods lived here beside them, on the earth. The peak of Mount Xandos was said to hold Perin's great fortress, and Kernios was believed to live in the caverns
of the south, although I believe there are other strains of wisdom that claim he dwelt somewhat closer, eh?" He gave Chert a significant gaze.
What does he mean? Does he know something of the Mysteries? Chert looked at Opal, but she was watching the physician with a speculation Chert found unsettling, as if her mind was awhirl with dangerous new thoughts. Hut why would Opal, Funderling Town's least flighty person, the bedrock on which Chert had based his whole life, be so interested in this obscure study of Chaven's?
"In later years," Chaven went on, "when brave or sacreligious men at last climbed cloud-wreathed Xandos and found no trace of Perin's stronghold, new ideas arose. A wise man named Phelsas in Hierosol began to talk of the Many Worlds, saying that the worlds of the gods are both connected to anil separate from our own."
"What does that mean?" Chert demanded. "Connected but separate? That makes no sense."
"Don't interrupt, old man," said Opal. "He's trying to explain if you'd just listen."
Chaven Makaros looked a little shamefaced at being the cause of such discord. Despite living in the house for several days he had not yet realized that this was Chert and Opal's way of speaking, especially Opal's, a kind of mock harshness that did not disguise her true and much warmer feelings- did not disguise them from Chert, at least, though outsiders might not rec¬ognize them.
"Have I spoken too much?" the physician asked. "It is late…"
"No, no." Chert waved for him to continue. "Opal is just reminding me that I'm a dunderhead. Continue-I am fascinated. It is certainly the first time any of these subjects have been discussed inside these walls."
"I know it is hard to understand," said Chaven. "I spent years with my master studying this and still do not altogether grasp it, and it is only one possible way of looking at the cosmos. The School of Phelsas says that the mistake is in thinking of our world or the world of the gods as solid things-as great masses of earth and stone. In truth, the Phelsaians suggest, the worlds-and there are more than two, they claim, far more-are closer to water."
"But that makes no sense…!" Chert began, then Opal caught his eye. "Apologies. Please continue."
"That does not mean the world is made of water," Chaven explained. "Let me explain. Just off the coast of my homeland Ulos in the south there
is a cold current that moves through the water cold enough to be loll with the hand, and even of a slightly different color than the rest of the Hesperian Ocean. This cold current sweeps down from the forbidden lands north ol Sctlland, rushes south past Perikal and the Ulosian coast, then i tit ves back out to sea again, finally disappearing in the waters off the west¬ern coast of distant Xand. Does that water travel through a clay pipe, like a Hierosoline water-channel bringing water hundreds of miles to the city? No. It passes through other water-it is water itself-but it retains its char¬acteristic chill and color.
"This, says the School of Phelsas, is the nature of the worlds, our world, the world of the gods, and others. They touch, they flow through each other, but they retain that which makes them what they are. They inhabit almost the same place, but they are not the same thing, and most of the time there is no crossing over from one to another. Most of the time, one can¬not even perceive the other."
Chert shook his head. "Strange. But where do mirrors fit into this?"
For once in the conversation, Opal did not seem to find him a waste of breath. "Yes, please, Doctor. What about the mirrors?"
Their guest shrugged in discomfort. Even after several days, it was still strange to see him here in their front room. Chert knew that Chaven was not particularly large for one of the big folk, but in this setting he loomed like a mountain. "You do not need to call me 'Doctor, Mistress Blue Quartz."
"Opal! Call me Opal."
"Well. Chaven, then." He smiled a little. "Very well. Ximander's Book tells that mirror-lore is the third great gift because it allows men to glimpse these other worlds that travel as close to us as our own shadows. Just as an ordinary mirror bounces back the vision that is before it, so too can a spe¬cial mirror be constructed and employed that will send back visions of… other places." He paused for a moment, as if considering what he was about to say very carefully. In the silence, Opal spoke up.
"It has to be a… special mirror?"
"In most cases and for most mirror-scrying, yes." Chaven looked at her in surprise. "You have heard something of this?"
"No, no." Opal shook her head. "Please go on. No, wait. Let me quickly look in on the boy." She got up and left the room, leaving Chert and Chaven to sip their tea. The blueroot had helped a little: Chert no longer felt as though he might fall onto his face at any moment.
Opal returned and Chaven took a breath. "As I said, I will not bore you with too much mirror-lore, which is complicated and full of disputation-just learning and understanding some of the disagreements between the Phelsaians and the Captrosophist Order in Tessis could take years. And of course the Trigonate church has considered the whole science blasphe mous for centuries. In bad times, men have burned for mirrors." As he said this, Chaven faltered a little. "Perhaps now I know why."
"What has your friend-your once-friend, I suppose-done to you, then?" Chert asked. "You said he stole something of yours. Was it a mirror?"
"Ah, you see where I am going," Chaven said almost gratefully. "Yes, it was a very powerful, very old mirror. One that I think was made carefully in ancient days to see, and even talk, between worlds."
"Where did you get it?"
Chaven's look became even stranger, a mixture of shame and a sort of furtive, almost criminal, hunger. "I… I don't know. There, I have said it. / do not know. I have traveled much, and I suppose I brought it back from one of my journeys, but with all the gods as my witnesses, I cannot say for sure."
"But if it is such a powerful thing…" Chert began.
"I know! Do not task me with it. I told you I was ashamed. I do not know how it came to me, but I had it, and I used it. And I… reached out and… and touched something on the other side."
It was the tortured expression on the physician's face as much as his words that made the hairs prickle on the back of Chert's neck. He almost thought he could sense movement in the room, as though the flames of the two lamps danced and flickered in an unfelt wind.
"Touched something…?" asked Opal, and her earlier interest seemed to have vanished into fear and distaste.
"Yes, but what it was… what it is… I cannot say. It is…" He shook his head and seemed almost ready to weep. "No. There are some things I cannot talk about. It is a thing beautiful and terrifying beyond all descrip¬tion, and it is mine alone-my discovery!" His voice grew harsh and he seemed to pull deeper into himself, as though prepared to strike or flee. "You cannot understand."
"But what use is such a thing to Okros-or to Hendon Tolly, for that matter?" Chert thought they seemed to have tunneled a bit far from the seam of the matter.
"I don't know," said Chaven wretchedly. "I don't even know what it is, myself! But I… woke it. And it has great power. Every time I touched it
I felt things that no man can ever have felt beore…" He let out a great, gasping sob. "1 woke it! And now I have let Okros steal it! And 1 can never touch it again…!"
The sounds he was making began to alarm Chert, but to his relief Opal got up and went to the weeping physician, patting his hand and stroking his shoulder as though he were a child-as though he were not twice her size "There, now. All will be well.You'll see."
"No, it won't. Not as long… not as long…" Another spell of sobbing look him and he did not speak for a long time. Chert found the man's weakness excruciatingly difficult to witness.
"Is there anything… would you…? Perhaps some more tea?" Opal asked at last.
"No. No, thank you." Chaven tried to smile, but he sagged like a pen¬nant on a windless day. "There is no cure for a shame like mine, not even your excellent tea."
"What shame?" Opal scowled. "You had something stolen from you. That isn't your fault!"
"Ah, but it meaning so much to me-that is my fault, without doubt. It has seized me-rooted itself in me like mistletoe on an oak. No, I could never be such a noble tree as Skyfather Perin's oak." He laughed brokenly. "It does not matter. I told no one. I made it my secret mistress, that mirror and what it contains, and I went to it afire with shame and joy. I spoke to no one because I was afraid I would have to give it up. Now it is too late. It's gone."
"Then it will be good for you," said Chert. "If it is an illness, as you say, then you can be cured now."
"You don't understand!" Chaven turned to him, eyes wide and face pale. "Even if I survive its loss, it is a terrible, powerful thing. You do not think Hendon Tolly and that bastard traitor Okros stole it for no reason, do you? They want its power! And what they will do with it, the gods only know. In fact, it could be only the gods can help us." He dropped his head, folded his bandaged hands on his chest-he was praying, Chert realized. "All-seeing Kupilas, lift me in your hands of bronze and ivory, preserve me from my folly. Holy Trigon, generous brothers, watch over us all…!" His voice dropped to a mumble.
"Doctor… Chaven," Opal said at last, "do you… can you do things… with any mirror?"
Chert gaped at her in astonishment-what was she talking about? — but
Chaven stirred and looked up, hollow-eyed but,i little more composed "I'm sorry, Mistress. What do you mean?"
"Could you help our Flint? Help him to find his wits again?"
"Opal, what is this nonsense?" Chert stood, feeling bone-weary in every part of his body. "Can't you see that the man is ready to drop?"
"It's true I am too tired to be of any use just now," said Chaven, "but it is also true that after abusing your hospitality in many ways, there are things I could… explore. But we have no mirror."
"We have mine." Opal revealed the small face-glass she had been hold ing in her palm. She had received it as a wedding present from Chert's sis¬ters, and now she held it out to Chaven, proud and anxious as a small child. "Could you use it to help our boy?"
He held it briefly, then passed it back. "Any mirror has uses to one who has been trained, Mistress. I will see what can be done in the morning." A strange light seemed to come into his eyes. "It is possible I could learn something of what Okros does as well." He passed a hand over his face. "But now I am so tired…!"
"Lie down then," said Opal. "Sleep. In the morning you can help him." She giggled, which alarmed Chert as much as Chaven's blubbering. "You can try, I mean."
The physician had already staggered to his pallet in the corner of the sit¬ting room- He stretched out, face-first, and appeared to tumble into sleep like a man stepping off a cliff. Chert, overwhelmed, could only follow Opal into the darkness of their own bedchamber.
Sister Utta had just finished lighting the last candle, and was whispering the Hours of Refusal prayer when she noticed the girl.
She almost lost the flow of what she was saying, but she had been prac¬ticing the rituals of Zoria for most of her life; her tongue kept forming the near-silent words even as she observed the child who stood patiently in the alcove, hooded against the cold.
"Just as you would give your virtue to no man, so I shall hold mine sacred to you."
How long has the child been standing there?
"Just as you would not turn your tongue to false praise, I will speak only words acceptable to you.
"Just as you did walk naked into darkness to return to your lather's house, so I will undertake my journey without fear, as long as I am true to you."
All. I know her now. It's young Eilis, the duchess Merolanna's maid. She is pale. It will he a long time until the spring sun, if the weather keeps up.
"And just as you returned at last to the bounty of your father's house, so will I, with your help and companionship, find my way to the blessed domain of the gods."
She kissed the palm of her hand and looked up briefly to the high win¬dow, its light dulled today by the cloudy weather. The face of her gloriously forgiving mistress looked down on her, reminding her that Zoria's mercy was without end, but Sister Utta still could not help feeling as though she had somehow failed the goddess.
Why has prayer brought me no peace? Is it my fault for bringing an unsettled heart to your shrine, sweet Zoria?
No answer came. Some days of deep sadness or confusion Utta could al¬most hear the voice of the goddess close as her own heartbeat, but today Perm's daughter seemed far away from her, even the stained glass window without its customary gleam, the birds that surrounded the virgin goddess not flying but only hovering, drab and distressed.
Utta took a breath, turned to the girl in the heavy woolen cloak. "Are you waiting for me?"
The child nodded helplessly, as if she had been caught doing something illicit. After a moment of wide-eyed confusion she reached into her cloak and produced an envelope with the seal of the dowager duchess on it. Utta took it, noting with surprise and sadness that the girl snatched her hand away as soon as the transfer had finished, as though she feared catching an illness.
What is that about? Utta wondered. Am I the subject of evil rumors again? She sighed, but kept it from making a sound. "Does she wish an answer now or shall I send one back later?"
"She… she wants you to read it, then come back with me."
Utta had to repress another sigh. She had much to do-the shrine needed sweeping, for one thing. The great bowl on the roof of the shrine needed filling so the birds could feed, a journey of many steps, and she also had letters to write. One of the other Zorians, the oldest of the castle's sis¬terhood, was ill and almost certainly dying and there were relatives who should be told, on the chance-however unlikely-that they would wish to come see her in the final days. Still, it was impossible to refuse the
duchess, especially in a castle so unsettled by change, when the Zorian shrine had scarcely any protectors left. Hendon Tolly was openly con-temptuous of Utta and the other Zorian sisters, calling them "white ants" and making it clear he thought the shrine took up room in the residence that could be better employed housing some of his kin and hangers on. No, Utta needed Merolanna's continued goodwill: she was one of the lew allies the sisterhood still retained.
Then again, perhaps the duchess was ill herself. Utta felt a clutch of worry. For all they were different, she liked the woman, and there were few enough among the castle folk these days with whom she felt anything in common.
"Of course I will come," Utta told the girl. She opened the letter and saw that it said nothing much more than the maid had suggested, except for a curious coda in the duchess' slightly shaky hand, "if you have a pair of specktakle glasses, bring them."
Utta did not, so she waved the girl toward the door of the shrine and followed her, but she could not help wondering what the duchess wanted of her that would require such a thing: Merolanna was an educated woman and could read and write perfectly well.
As she followed the girl Eilis through the nearly empty halls Utta could not help noticing how the interior of the residence seemed to mirror the weather outside. Half the torches were unlit and a dim gray murk seemed to have fallen over the corridors. Even the sounds of voices behind doors were muffled as though by a thick fog. The few people she passed, servants mostly, seemed pale and silent as ghosts.
Is it the fairy folk across the river? It has been a full month now and they have done nothing, but it is hard not to think of them every night. Is it the twins disap¬pearing? Or is there something more-may the White Daughter protect us always- something deeper, that has made this place as cold and lonely as a deserted seashore?
When they reached the duchess' chambers, Eilis left Utta standing in the middle of the front room surrounded by a largely silent group of gentle¬women and servants, most of them sewing, while she went and knocked on the inner chamber door.
"Sor Utta is here, Your Grace."
"Ah." Merolanna's voice was faint but firm. Utta felt a little better: if the dowager duchess was ill, she did not sound it. "Send her in. You stay out¬side with the others, child."
Utta was surprised to find the duchess fully dressed, her hair done and
her face powdered, looking in all ways prepared for any stale occasion, but seated on the edge of her bed like a despondent child. Merolanna held a piece of paper in her hand, and she waved it distractedly, gesturing toward a chair high and wide enough to hold a woman wearing a voluminous court dress. Utta sat down. Because she wore only her simple robes, the seat stretched away on either side, so that she felt a bit like a single pea rolling in a wide bowl. "How may I help you, Your Grace?"
Merolanna waggled the piece of paper again, this time as if to drive away some annoying insect. "I think I am going mad, Sister. Well, perhaps not mad, but I do not know whether I am upside down or right side up."
"Your Grace?"
"Did you bring your reading spectacles?"
"I do not use such things, ma'am. I get along well enough, although my eyes are not what they were…"
"I can scarcely read without mine-Chaven made them for me, beauti¬ful spectacle-lenses in a gold wire frame. But I lost them, curse it, and he's gone." She looked around the bedchamber in mingled outrage and misery, as though Chaven had disappeared on purpose, just to leave her half-blind.
"Do you want me to read something to you?"
"To yourself-but quietly! Come sit next to me. I already muddled it out, even without my spectacles, but I want to see if you read the same words." Merolanna patted the bed.
Utta herself did not wear scents, not because the Sisterhood didn't per¬mit her to, but out of personal preference, and she found Merolanna's sweet, powdery smell a little disconcerting, not to mention almost strong enough to make her sneeze. She composed herself with her hands on her lap and tried not to breathe too deeply.
"This!" Merolanna said, waving the piece of paper again. "I don't know if I'm going mad, as I'm sure I already said. The whole world is topsy-turvy and has been for months! It almost feels like the end of the world."
"Surely the gods will bring us through safely, my lady."
"Perhaps, but they're not doing much to help so far. Asleep, perhaps, or simply gone away." Merolanna laughed, short and sharp. "Do I shock yon?"
"No, Duchess. I cannot imagine a person who would never be angry al the gods or full of doubt in days like these. We have all-and especially you-lost too many that we love, and seen too many frightening things."
"Exactly." Merolanna hissed out a breath like someone who has waited a long time to hear such words. "Do I seem mad?"
"Not at all, my lady."
"Then perhaps there is some explanation for this." She handed Utta the piece of paper. It was a page of a letter, written in a careful and narrow hand, the letters set close as though the paper itself was precious and none of it was to be wasted.
Utta squinted. "It has no beginning or ending. Is there more?"
"There must be, but this is all I have. That is Olin's handwriting-the king. I believe it must be the letter that came to Kendrick just before the poor boy was murdered."
"And you wish me to read it?"
"In a moment. First you must understand why… why I doubt my senses. That page, that one page, simply… appeared in my room this morning."
"Do you mean someone left it for you? Put it under your door?"
"No, that is not what I mean. I mean it… appeared. While I sat in the other room with my ladies and Eilis, talking about the morning's service in the chapel."
"Appeared while you were at the service?"
"No, while I sat in the other room! Gods, woman, I do not think so lit¬tle of my own wit that I would believe myself mad because someone left me a letter. We came back from the service. It was the new priest, that peevish-looking fellow. As you know, the Tollys drove my dear Timoid away." Her voice was as bitter as gall.
"I had heard he left the castle," Utta said carefully. "I was sorry to hear he was going."
"But all that doesn't matter this moment. As I said, we came back from the service. I came here to take off my chapel clothes. There was no letter. You will think I am a foolish woman who simply did not notice, but I swear on all the gods, there was no letter. I went out into the parlor room and sat with the others and we talked of the service and what we would do this day. The fire burned down and I went to get a shawl, and the letter was lying in the middle of this bed."
"And no one had come in?"
"None of us had even left the sitting room. Not once!"
Utta shook her head. "I do not know what to say. Shall I read it?"
"Please. It is eating away at me, wondering why such a thing was left here."
Utta spread the piece of parchment on her lap and began to read aloud.
",, Men on Raven 's Gate are slack. It seems our strong old walls work their spell not only on enemies, but on our own soldiers as well. I do not know if the young captain whose name escapes me inherited this problem from Mur-roy and has not been able or willing to fix it yet, or whether his governance of the guards has been slack, but this must change. I warn you that we must keep our eyes open for enemies within our city as well as outside, and that means greater vigilance.
"I implore you also, tell Brone that I said the rocks beneath where the old and new walls meet outside the Tower of Summer must be examined and per¬haps some other form of defense should be built there-an overhanging wall, perhaps, and another sentry post. That is the one place where someone might climb up from below and gain direct access to the Inner Keep. I know this must seem like untoward fretting to you, my son, but I fear the long peace is end¬ing soon. I have heard whispers here in Hierosol that worry me, about the autarch and other things, and I was already fearful before I set off on this ill-starred quest.
"While I speak of the Tower of Summer, let me tell you one other thing, and this is meant for your eyes alone. If you read this letter to Briony and Barrick, DO NOT read this part to them.
If a day should come when you know beyond doubt that I am dead, there is something you must see. It is in the Summer Tower, in my library desk-a book, bound in plain dark cloth, with nothing written on its cover or binding. It is locked and the key may be found in a hidden cubby hole in the side of the desk, under the carved head of the Eddon wolf. But I beg of you, even order you so much as I am still your father and lord, do not touch it unless a time comes when you know as undeniable truth that I will not come back to you.
"That is all about that, or almost all. If you must share anything in that book with someone else, brave son, spare your brother and sister, and trust no one else but Shaso, who alone among my advisers has nothing to gain from treachery and everything to lose. For him, the fall of me or my heirs will mean exile, poverty, and perhaps even death, so I think he can be taken into your confidence, but only if you can see no way to shoulder the burden alone.
"Enough of this unhappy subject. I trust that I will still come back to you hale and well-Ludis wants bright gold in his hands, or at worst a living bride, but not a dead king. In the hours and days until then, please see that the castle is made safe. There are still too many places where we are vulnera¬ble, and the slack methods of peacetime quickly become lasting regrets. Tell
Brone also that the tunnels beneath thecastle have not been surveyed in a hun-dred years, while the Funderlings have been burrowing like moles, and ihat there are so many holes in so many Southmarch basements that…"
"And there it ends," said Utta. "Except that there is a curious addendum
written in the side margin, in quite a different fist."
"I could not make that out-read it to me," demanded Merolnnna, The Zorian sister squinted for a moment, trying to make sense of it It
was in an archaic-looking script, much smaller and more clumsily done
than the king's writing, twisted so that it would fit into the letter's narrow
margins, but the ink seemed quite fresh and new.
"If ye desire to knowe more, we wold speake with you. Say only, YES, and we will heare ye, howsowever."
Utta looked up at the duchess, perplexed. "I have no idea what that means."
"Nor do I. Any of it. But if someone is listening, I will say it. Yes!" She almost shouted the word. "There. How is that for madness? I am talking to ghosts. It will not be the first time this cursed year."
Utta ignored that, looking around the room, trying to spot anyplace that someone might hide and spy on them. The chamber had no windows, and since the duchess' part of the residence was on the topmost floor, nothing lay above them but the roof. Could someone be up there, crouching beside the bedchamber's small chimney, listening? But surely they would hear any¬one moving about up there, or the guards would spot them.
The two women sat together in silence for long moments, waiting to see if anything would come of the strange request and Merolanna's ac¬cession, but at last the duchess raised herself shakily from the bed. "Whatever happens, I cannot in good faith keep you here all day, al¬though it is a comfort to see you, Sister Utta. I do not trust many of those around me, and none of those who have sided with the Tollys, those damnable traitors."
"Please, my lady, not so loudly, even in your own chambers."
"Do you think they would have me tried and executed?" Merolanna laughed with something that sounded almost like pleasure. "Ah, but I'd scorch them first, wouldn't I? I'd speak my mind and burn the skin from their ears! Hiding behind a baby like that, claiming to protect Olin's throne
when everyone knows they've been itching to get their hands on it since his poor brother died." She waved her hand in disgust. "Enough. 1 will walk you to the door. It is time I get out of this room, before 1 start seeing the phantoms I'm speaking to."
Merolanna bid her good-bye, offering her Eilis to walk back with her, but Utta politely refused. She wanted to walk by herself and think about what had happened.
Before she got two dozen steps down the hall, the door opened up again and Merolanna called after her in a cracked, frightened voice.
"Utta! Utta, come here!"
When she returned to the rooms, she let Merolanna lead her with trem¬bling hand into the bedchamber. There, in the middle of the bed, lay an¬other piece of paper-a torn scrap of parchment this time, but the writing was in the same crabbed, ancient style.
"Come to us to-morrow an home after suns set, in the top of the 'Tower of Summer."
Hunted
Then Zmeos and his siblings reappeared, and disputed the right of Perin
Skylord and his brothers to rule over heaven, but the three brothers met
their scorn with peace. For a long time they all lived in uneasy alliance
until the eye qf Khors fell on Zoria, Perin's virgin daughter. Khors coveted
her, and so he stole her from her father's house, taking her to his fortress.
— from The Beginnings of Things The Book of the Trigon
SOMETHING WAS TUGGING at his hair.
Ferras Vansen had been lost in dreams of sunny meadows, but even in that fair place something dark had been lurking in the grass, and now it took him a few heartbeats to shake off the grip of the fearful dream.
"Master!" Skurn again took a clump of Vansen's hair in his beak and yanked. The bird's foul breath was right in his face. "Wake up! Something out there!"
Awake, dreaming, it made no difference-fear and misery were every¬where. Vansen rolled over. The bird hopped off him, flapping awkwardly back to the ground. "What?" he demanded. "What is it?"
"Us can't say," it whispered. "Smells like leather and metal. And noises there be, quiet ones."
A tall, menacing shadow fell over Vansen, blocking the faint glow of the guttering fire. Suddenly very much awake, he snatched at his blade, tangling
it and himself in the clonk he used as a blanket, but the shadow did not move.
It was Gyir, his hand held out in a gesture of demand, the eyes in his fea¬tureless lace staring at Ferras Vansen with an intensity that seemed to glow.
Give. Vansen could almost hear the word, although the faceless creature had not spoken aloud. Give.
"He wants his sword," Prince Barrick whispered, sitting up. "Give it to him…"
"Give him…?"
"His sword! He knows this place. We do not."
Vansen did not move for a moment, his eyes swiveling between the prince and the looming, red-eyed fairy. At last he rolled over and pulled the scabbarded blade out from under his cloak. The fairy-man closed his fin¬gers around the hilt and pulled it free, leaving Vansen holding the empty sheath as Gyir turned and vanished into the undergrowth around their small hillside encampment, swift and silent as a breeze.
"This is mad…" Vansen muttered. "He'll sneak back and kill us both."
"He will not." Barrick took off his boots and wiped his feet with the edge of his tattered, filthy cloak before pulling the boots back on. "He is angry, but not at us."
"What do you mean, angry?"
Skurn fluffed his feathers in worry. Small fragments of sticky eggshell flecked his beak and breast. Whatever had startled the raven seemed to have caught him midmeal."Them all are mad, the High Ones," the bird said qui¬etly. "Have lived too long in the Black Towers, them, staring into they mir¬rors and listening to voices of the dead."
"What does that mean? Have all of you lost your minds?"
"Gyir is angry because the raven heard the noises before he did," Bar¬rick said calmly. "He blames himself."
"But why should…?" Vansen never finished his question. From farther up the hillside echoed a noise unlike anything he had ever heard, a honk¬ing screech like a blast from a trumpet that had been bent into some im¬possible shape. "Perin's hammer," he gasped, "what is that?"
"Oh, Masters, them are Longskulls or worse!" squawked the raven.
"Whatever the bird scented, Gyir found." Barrick was still donning his boots, as calmly as if preparing for a walk across the Inner Keep back home.
Vansen struggled to his feet. "Shouldn't we… help him?" The thought was disturbing, but he had little doubt there were worse things afoot in
these lands than Ciyir. He had seen one of them lake his comrade Collum Dyer, after all.
"Wait." Barrick held up his hand, listening. The youth still had that un-thinking air of command-the inseparable heritage of a royal childhood despite looking as disreputable as the poorest cotsman's urchin, even by the feeble glow of the fire. His hair, wet and festooned with bits of leaves, stuck out as eccentrically as Skurn's patchy feathers, and his clothes could only have looked more ragged and filthy if they had not originally been black. "It's Gyir. He wants us to come to him."
"Why? Is he… has he…"
"He is unharmed-but he is still angry." Barrick smiled a tight, secretive smile.
"Your Higness, what if he tricks us? I know you do not fear him, but think! He has his weapon back. Now would be the perfect time for him to murder us-it is dark, and he knows this forest much better than we do."
"If he wanted to kill us he could have done it any of the last few nights. He is not just angry-he is frightened, too. He needs us, although I am not quite sure why." Barrick frowned. "I cannot hear him anymore. We must go to him."
Without even a torch to light his way, Barrick started up the hillside in the direction of the scream. Vansen cursed and bent for a stick from the fire, then hurried after him.
The returning rains had washed the pall of smoke from the sky, but not the ever present Mantle, as Gyir called it: even in the middle-night a dull glow still bled through the close-knit branches above them, as though the murky skies had held onto a touch of the daylong twilight, soaking it up like oil so that it would sputter dimly through the night. But it was difficult to see even with the nightglow and the pathetic, makeshift torch: by the time he caught up to the prince, Vansen had scraped himself raw on several branches and had fallen down twice. Barrick turned to help him up the second time.
"Faster," said the prince.
But I was having such a good time dawdling and enjoying the sights, your High¬ness, Vansen thought sourly.
Skurn caught up with them in a moment-the raven could make faster time upslope than they could, hopping, sometimes flying awkwardly for a few yards at a time. The old bird seemed always to move in an odor of wet earth and a faint putridity: Vansen scented him a moment before he heard him flapping along behind them.
"Head down, Master," Skurn hissed. Vansen narrowly avoided running face-first into.How branch. Thereafter he found the bird's smell easier to bear.
Vansen gasped when Gyir abruptly stepped out of a copse of trees di-rectly in front of them. The fairy-man's sword was dripping black, his jerkin and gloved hands also spattered.
(!yir gestured toward the copse behind him. Vansen went to look, still un¬able to shake off a fear that the faceless creature might turn on them at any moment. Because he was looking back over his shoulder, trying to locate Gyir in the nighttime dark, he almost stepped on the first body. Hand trembling, he held the brand down close, trying to understand what he was seeing.
The body seemed all wrong, somehow-folded into angles normal bones did not allow. It had a long, bony head which stuck out before and behind, and hard, leathery skin which only made the inhuman shape more obvi¬ous. The dead creature's arms were long and might have had an extra joint in them-it was hard to tell because of the darkness, but also because Gyir had made such a bloody mess of the thing. Still, it was the head that was most disturbing, especially the long, bony, beaklike snout, and although the dead creature's forehead was nearly human, the deep-set eyes might have belonged to a lizard.
The clothes that it wore were disturbing, too. The fact that this monster wore anything at all, much less a full battle-rig, an oily leather jerkin under chain mail, was enough to make Vansen's stomach squirm and a sour taste rise into the back of his mouth.
A second beak-faced corpse lay a few feet away, the bony head cut al¬most in half, the clawed, bloody hands still spread as if to ward off the deathblow.
"Perin's hammer, what are these… things?" Vansen asked. "Were they after us?"
"Don't know, but Gyir says they're Longskulls," Barrick said. "That's one of the reasons he's so angry. He's still suffering from the wounds the Followers gave him, he says, or he would have had all three of them."
"Longskulls," wheezed Skurn. "And not ordinary roving Longskulls either, this lot. They belong to someone, they do-can tell it by their wearings."
Gyir bent and turned the creature's ugly head with his sword blade so that they could see a mark scorched onto its bony face-a brand, several overlapping, wedge-shaped marks like a scatter of thorns.
"Jikuyin," Barrick said slowly. "I think that is how Gyir would say it."
The raven gave a croak of dismay. "Jack Chain? Them do belong to Jack Chain?" He fluttered awkwardly up onto Vansen's shoulder, almost over¬balancing him. "We must run far and fast, Master. Far and fast!"
"The one you talked about?" Vansen looked from the silent Gyir to Bar-rick. "I thought we had left his territory behind!"
The prince did not answer for a moment. "Gyir says we will have to take turns sleeping and watching from now on," he said at last. "And that we must keep our weapons close."
The road was still overgrown, half-invisible most of the time beneath drifts of strange plants or the damage from roots and floods, but the trees were beginning to thin: ragged segments of gray sky appeared on the hori¬zon, stretched between the trunks of trees like the world's oldest, filthiest linens hung out to dry. Even the rain was lightening to a floating drizzle, but Barrick did not feel a corresponding relief.
What are we running from? he asked Gyir. Not those bony things?
Take care. The fairy reached out a pale hand, pointing at a spot just ahead where the way forward dissolved into tumbled stones and shrubbery. Bar¬rick reined up and the weirdling horse named Dragonfly walked around the ruined section before resuming its trot. Gyir leaned forward over the horse's long neck again, looking like the figurehead of a most peculiar ship.
What are we running from? Barrick asked again.
Death. Or worse. One of the Longskulls escaped. A wash of disgust moved underneath the fairy's thought, as obvious as a strong odor.
But you killed two by yourself. Vansen is a soldier, and I can fight, too. Surely we don't have anything to fear from the one that got away?
They do not hunt alone, or even in packs of three, sunlander. Gyir seemed to bite back a rage that, if freed, could not be captured again. They are cowardly. They like company.
Hunt?
In fikuyin's service they are slavers or harvesters. Either way, those three were out hunting. They were scouts for a larger troop-I know it as I know that the White Root is in the sky overhead. This last came to Barrick as no more than the idea of a bright light shining through fog. The more disturbed Gyir be¬came, the less work he put into choosing concepts Barrick could easily un¬derstand. Would you rather be enslaved or eaten? It is not a good choice, is it?
And who is Jikuyin? You keep talking about him, but I still don't know!
The one the bird calls lack Chain. He is a power, an old power, and now that Qul-na-Qar has lost so much of its… — again an idea Barrick could not un¬derstand, something that came to him as «glow» but also «language» and perhaps even "music," an impossible amalgamation. Clearly fikuyin is confi¬dent of his strength, if he dares to spread his song so far into free territory.
Barrick understood almost none of this. His arm was hurting him fiercely-the wet weather in these lands had done him no good at all-and the rib he had injured in a fall still pained him too. But it was rare to get Gyir to speak at any length. He was reluctant to give up the chance.
What kind of power is he? Is he another king, like the blind one you the talk about?
No. He is an old power. He is one of the gods' bastards, as I told you. We de¬feated most of them back in the Years of Blood, but some were too clever or too strong and hid away in deep places or high places, Jikuyin is one of those.
Some kind of god? And he's hunting…for us? Barrick suddenly felt as if he might fall out of his saddle-a swooning, light-headedness that for sev¬eral heartbeats turned the forest around him into a meaningless rush of green. When the rushing ended, Gyir's arm was gripping his belt, holding him upright.
"I'm well, I'm well…" Barrick said out loud, then realized Vansen and the raven were staring at him. They were riding almost beside him when he had been certain they were a dozen or more lengths behind, as though he had lost a few moments of time during his spell of dizziness.
Shouldn't we turn back, if this… creature, thisfack Chain, is searching for us?
Not searching for us, I think. He would not send mere Longskulls to capture one like me. There was arrogance and pride in the thought, but also regret. He could not know I have been… damaged.
Damaged?
Now the regret felt more like shame. Barrick did not need to see Gyir's face (which obviously never revealed much anyway) to understand the fairy's grim mood. The Followers, when they attacked me-I fell. They struck my head several times and then I hit it again on a stone. I am… blind.
The word didn't seem right, somehow, but Barrick still reacted with as¬tonishment. What do you mean, blind? You can see!
Only with my eyes.
While Barrick puzzled over this, Ferras Vansen rode up beside them again-as close as Vansen's mortal horse would come, anyway: even after a
tennight traveling together, the animal always stayed at the stretched end of his tether when the company made camp, keeping as distant from the fairy horse as he could. "Your Highness, are you ill?" the soldier asked. "Yon.al-most fell out of your saddle…"
"There is nothing wrong with me. Let me be." He wanted to talk to Gyir again, not swap braying mortal speech with this… peasant.
A peasant who came with you when he didn't have to, an inner voice re¬minded him, and for once he was hearing himself, not Gyir. A peasant who came to this wretched place with full knowledge of what it was like.
Barrick took a breath. "I do not mean to be… I am well enough, Captain Vansen." He could not bring himself to apologize. "You and I will talk later."
The soldier nodded and reined up a little, letting Barrick's horse take the lead again. As they fell back, the scruffy black bird crouching on Vansen's saddle watched the prince with disconcertingly shrewd eyes, like Chaven the physician seeing through one of Barrick's tantrums to the real matter beneath. For a moment the prince was painfully lonely again for South-march, for familiar faces and familiar things.
You said blind. Why? he asked. Your eyes work, don't they?
Gyir would not speak for long moments. / am the Storm Lantern, he said
finally. It is given to me to see in darkness, to see what is behind the light, to see
things that are far away. I have an eye inside me, inside my head. Never before would
three Longskulls have crept so close to me. Never before would I have to learn of it
from a mere raven! But now I am blind.
There was so much misery in this thought, so much fury, that for a mo¬ment, as the sensations buffeted him, Barrick felt as though he would vomit. He put one hand on the saddle to steady himself-he did not want Vansen riding up again, prying at him with questions.
Because of the wound to your head?
Yes. Yes, and now I am all but helpless-forced to hide and skulk in terror in my own country, like a forest elemental caught out by Whitefire in the naked sunlands!
Barrick didn't know what Gyir meant, but he knew that sort of rage and despair when he heard it-knew it all too well. Will you get better?
I do not know. The wound is healed, at least the flesh is. How can I say?
Barrick took a breath. It does no good to fight against what the gods have done, he told Gyir, repeating without realizing it something Briony had often said to him. Perhaps we should find a place to hide, a place to wait and see if your wound finally heals? Wouldn't that be better than riding across this place you think is so dangerous, with those creatures out hunting?
You do not understand, Gyir said. We cannot afford so much time. As it is, we may be too late.
Too late? l!or what?
I… I carry something. My mistress gave it to me, and I must take it to Qul-na-Qar, and soon. If I arrive too late-or do not arrive at all-many will die.
What are you talking about?
Many of your race and many of mine will die, little sunlander. There was no mistaking the grim certainty of the silent words. At the very least, every human remaining in that castle of yours, and likely countless more-of both our kinds. I have been tasked to outrun doom.
"I don't understand." Vansen's legs ached. They had been riding fast without a break for what must have been a few hours. "What are we run¬ning from?"
"Longskulls." Skurn was huddled so low against the horse's neck that he looked like little more than a particularly ugly growth. "Like the dead 'uns you saw."
"You said that already. Why are they after us?"
"Not after us'n, after whatever they can find-meat and slaves for Jack Chain."
"You keep talking about him? Who is he?"
"Not a him, not like you mean. An Old One. Does no good talking. Save your breath."
"But where are we? Where are we going?"
"Not our patch, this." The raven closed his eyes again and lowered his head near the horse's rolling shoulders and would not be roused to say any more.
Vansen knew that whatever small control he had maintained over this doomed expedition was long gone. Gyir was armed again, they were on the run from something Vansen could not understand, and now the fairy-warrior was actually leading them. All this in a place that Ferras Vansen had intended never even to approach again in his life-a place which had all but killed him once already. Yet here they were, careening along the an¬cient, overgrown road, heading… where? Deeper into the Twilight Lands, that was all he knew. So eyen if he could have forced himself to desert the prince, Vansen could no longer turn back-he would never find his way
back to the sunlands on his own.Doomed, doomed, he mourned. Why did t
ever swear myself to these cursed, lost, mad Eddons?
Half a day seemed to have gone by when they finally stopped to let the two horses drink. Vansen stood as his mount lapped water from a muddy streamlet that crossed the road. The trees were thinner here, the land ahead hilly but a bit more open, and even in unending twilight it was good at least to be able to see a little distance.
Skurn was drinking too, but farther downstream, since Vansen's horse had startled when he had fluttered down next to it. Some yards away from both of them, Barrick's gray steed drank with the same silent concentration it brought to everything else. Vansen's horse's ribs were still heaving as it caught its breath, but the fairy-horse seemed as fresh as when they had begun.
Is it truly stronger, Vansen wondered, or is it merely that it is at home here and mine is not? The same question, he reflected, could be asked about Gyir, who stood impatiently waiting while the horses drank their fill. Barrick had not even bothered to dismount, but sat and stared out at the road ahead, which was little more than a trail between rows of ghostly white trees of a sort Vansen had never seen, a tangle stretching away on either side like the traceries of frost on a window. The track itself looked considerably less magical, a lumpy swath of mud and pale grass, the stones of the old human road long since carried away by water or some more intentional pilferage.
"Highness," Vansen called-but not too loudly: it was easy to imagine those trees listening to the unfamiliar sound of human speech like coldly curious phantoms. "When will we stop and make camp? It must be day again, if we can call it such, and both you and I need food even if the fairy doesn't. In fact, we have used everything in my saddlebags, so before we can eat, we must also find something worth eating."
"Gyir says it is indeed day, but he does not want to stop until we have crossed the… the… Whisperfall."
"What is that?"
"A river. He says that Longskulls do not like the water. They can't swim."
Vansen laughed despite himself. "Perin's fiery bolts, what a world! Very well, then, we'll camp by the river. But we must eat before then, Highness."
"Us will catch summat for you," offered Skurn.
"No, we will find our own." He'd seen too much already of what Skurn thought edible. He and Barrick had struggled by so far on a few unfamiliar
looking birds and an injured black rabbit, all caught by Vansen with his bare hands they could survive without the raven's help a little longer."Unless you can find us something wholesome-eggs, maybe." He looked at the spotty old bird and decided he needed to be more specific. "Bird's eggs."
But can we afford to be particular? Vansen wondered. I have no bow, so I can't even hope to bring down a squirrel, let alone a deer or something really toothsome. In fact, now that he thought of it, other than the Followers and Longskulls Gyir had killed, they'd seen no creature bigger than Skurn during this whole venture into the shadowlands. He pointed this out to Barrick, who only shrugged.
"And what does that fairy eat?" Vansen asked suddenly. "We've been traveling together for over a tennight and I've never seen him eat. Even if he doesn't have a mouth, he must take food somehow!"
"When I was young," the prince said, "the nurse told me that fairies drank flower-nectar and ate Stardust." His smile was mirthless. "Gyir tells me that what he eats is none of our affair, and that we must get riding again."
They found little more to fill their stomachs that day, only a few hand-fuls of pale, waxy berries Skurn and Gyir agreed the two sunlanders could probably eat without harm. They were sweeter than Vansen had feared, but still with a strange, smoky flavor unlike anything he had tasted. He also tried, at the raven's suggestion, a piece of fungus that grew on some of the trees they passed, which Skurn said would take the edge off his hunger. It was one of the most disgusting things Vansen had ever eaten in his life; for a veteran of several field campaigns (and a man who had dined more than once at the Badger's Boots Inn) that was saying something. The outside of the fungus was slimy with rain, so that putting it in his mouth was like bit¬ing into something plucked from a tidal pool, but the inside was dry, pow¬dery, and as tasteless as dust. Still, he choked it down, and found that although it made him feel a little light-headed it did relieve the pain in his stomach. He pulled off a piece for the prince, who after a silent colloquy with Gyir, ate it with evident distaste.
They rode on with only a few short breaks for rest, cheered only by an occasional break in the cold drizzle. The forest continued to thin, and at times Vansen could see what looked like flatter, more open land in the dis¬tance. Once he even spotted the lead-colored gleam of what Gyir con¬firmed was the Whisperfall, although it was still far, far away.
"It looks like it will be easier going ahead," Vansen said to Skurn.
The bird stirred and flapped its wings."Them be emptier lands, true, afar of the Whisperfall. Has to watch out, though. Be woodsworms there."
"Woodsworms? What are those?"
"Perilous big, Master. Dragons, some'd call they, but looks like trees- like fallen… what? Logs. Aye, lay up, they do, and wait for something to move too close. Then down them come, like a spider as has summat in's web." The raven peered at Vansen's expression. "Heard of they, have you? Heard them was fearful?"
"I've… oh, gods, I think I've seen one." Collum's dying scream was in his head, and always would be. That thing… that horrible, sticklike thing… "Is that the only way we can go?"
"Bad, they woodsworms, aye, but them are few. Jack Chain be worse, all say." And with these uncheering words Skurn fluffed his feathers and low¬ered himself against the saddle horn again.
Another hour or so went by and they did not see the Whisperfall again. Gyir at last and with evident reluctance allowed them to stop and make camp on a hillside overlooking a shallow canyon. Skurn found more berries the sunlanders could eat, and some dark blue flowers whose petals were sharply rangy but edible; when Vansen curled up under his cloak to sleep he had, if not a light heart, at least no heavier a mood than the night before.
He was shaken awake just as he had been the previous night, but this time by Barrick. "Get up!" the prince whispered."They're on the ridge be¬hind us!"
"Who?" But Vansen already knew. He grabbed his sword and rose to his feet. He patted his horse to keep it quiet while he stared up the wooded slope. He could see torches at the top, the flames strangely red against the half-light, and shadows moving down the hill toward them between the trees. "Where is our fairy?" Vansen hissed, half-certain they'd been betrayed, that all the pretense of companionship had been leading to this.
"Here, behind me," Barrick said. "He says ride straight downhill, then turn downstream when you reach the bottom of the valley When we come out of the trees we'll be on a slope heading toward the Whisperfall. If you can get to the river, he says ride out into the middle of it-we should be safe there."
Something in the heights above them loosed a honking,bellow that sounded more like some giant, raw-throated goose than a dog, let alone a
prison, Vansen's skin, already prickling with fear, seemed to tighten and hunch all over his body.
"Go!" Barrick hurried toward his own horse. Gyir was already mounted; lie helped the prince up. "They're coming-they know we're awake now!"
"Are those hounds they have? Wolves?"
Something thrashed down out of the tree and dropped onto him just as he climbed into the saddle. "Don't forget us, Master!" Skurn croaked, dodg-ing Vansen's panicky swat. "Take us with!"
"Get behind me, then." He had to get low in the saddle and didn't want to be trying to see his way past the raven's south end.
The honking sounded again as Vansen spurred his mount downslope after the prince's horse, which he could already barely see through the trees and the shadowland's eternal evening. Branches slapped at him as though they were angry.
"Them be not hounds, Master," Skurn screeched, huddled close against Vansen's back, talons sunk through the fabric at his belt. "Them be those Sniffers. Need no hounds, them sniff so well." Another honking call split the night, closer now. "Loud, too," the little creature added needlessly.
The squawking and gabbling noises seemed to come from at least a half a dozen different places up the slope; when Vansen turned he could see the curious red torches in at least that many different spots, all moving steadily downward.
All we can do is pray that the horses do not stumble in the dark and break a leg, he thought. "Do they run well, these Longskulls?" he called back to Skurn. "Will they be able to catch us on flat ground?"
"Oh, Master, us thinks not, but them can track we forever. Smell a nest in the top of a tall tree, they can."
"Left!" Barrick shouted from somewhere below.
Vansen had just opened his mouth to ask him what he meant when the huge shadow heaved up directly in front of him-a rock the size of a cabin, a protruding bone of the hill's heavy stone skeleton. He yanked the reins and veered, alm.ost falling headlong as the angle of the slope pitched more steeply downward.
Within moments they had swept out of the thickest woods and onto a patch of grassy slope. Vansen felt a flicker of hope, if only a tiny one: surely on horseback they could beat these honking monsters down to the river, and if Gyir was right about their dislike of water…
The beak-faced things were charging down through the trees on all sides, torches bobbing as the hooting clamor grew louder. I le thought about drawing his sword, but instead bent even lower over the horse's net k and concentrated instead on staying in the saddle as branches whipped at his face. Barrick and Gyir were just a few yards ahead, but the dark fairy horse was bigger than his and was beginning to pull away despite carrying two full-sized riders. Vansen dug his heels into his mount's ribs, afraid of falling too far behind in this dark, unfamiliar place.
He crashed out of a small spinney to see a scatter of torches had some how appeared on the hillside just in front of him. Some of the pursuers had been farther down and had come out of the woods, missing Barrick's horse but cutting off Vansen's. He yanked at his sword hilt, praying for a clean pull. Skyfather Perin or someone heard him: the blade slid out in one swift glide and Vansen was swinging it at the nearest flame before he could even see the creature holding the brand.
His blade clacked against a stony skull. The thing fell away, its torch fly¬ing through the air. Another honking shape rose up in front of him but the gray horse, veteran of many battles, barely slowed as it trampled over the thing with a muffled crunch of bones, then Vansen's way was clear again. The line of torchbearers scrambled after him, but he was pulling away and had only lost a little ground to his companions.
He was almost down on flat ground now, following the course of what seemed to be a small stream toward the end of the valley, his mount step¬ping nimbly around thick, heathery bushes. He could actually see the open¬ing of the valley now, a triangular piece of gray sky, and when he looked back the nearest torches were dozens of paces behind and falling back. He opened his mouth to shout something to Barrick, then suddenly the end of the valley ahead of them began to fill with more torches, as though dozens of flaming stars had fallen to earth.
"Trap!" he screamed. "They've trapped us!" But he knew that Barrick would not slow or turn back, that Gyir would not let him. Their only hope was that this new troop would not be strong enough to turn them back, that they could cut their way through and still escape into the valley and toward the distant river.
A hundred yards of open ground lay between them and the torches, a hundred yards that closed in what felt like a heartbeat. Only at the last mo¬ment did Vansen abruptly wonder how well-prepared this trap was-did the gabbling creatures have pikes? Would they have dug themselves in, then
waited, as a human troop might have? The torches hurtled closer as if they had been thrown, and the eerie honking noises rose until he thought it would deafen him.
There were no pikes, but the line extended back beyond the torchbear-ers, three or four defenders deep at least. He saw Barrick's horse crash into the dark mass, heard shrieks and hooting screams and what sounded like a shout of anger from the prince, then Vansen was in the midst of the chaos himself, striking with his sword wherever he saw something move.
Some of the creatures had shields. Vansen could only hack his way a few yards into the crush of Longskulls before being driven back again, ham¬mering away with his sword at the sharp points jabbing at him from all sides. The bony-headed creatures didn't have pikes or even swords as far he could tell in the confusion, but there were many axes and more than a few short stabbing-spears, as well as clubs. One shrieking creature swung some¬thing at him that looked like a pickax made of two heavy branches tied together, and although Vansen broke it with his blade, the force of the blow nearly knocked him from his saddle.
Unable to break through, Ferras Vansen yanked hard on the reins and his horse danced back out of the worst of the melee. He tried to spot another way through but it was like some children's game in a dark room, half-seen shapes everywhere. Where was the prince? Was he down, or had he and the fairy broken through?
A moment later Vansen saw Gyir on foot, dragging Barrick backward out of a clot of defenders, the fairy-horse lost or dead. Vansen spurred toward them and was suddenly aware of Skurn squawking in fear, squeezed underneath the arm he was using to hold the reins. The large, clumsy bird would only get in his way and there was no sense in the raven dying, too, if that was what was to happen. Vansen pulled Skurn loose, then threw him into the dark rushes waving near the stream.
The reverberating cry of the creatures grew suddenly louder as the rest of the force, the troop that had been pursuing Vansen and the others down the hill, came dashing out onto open ground, waving their torches, their oddly-jointed movements stranger than any nightmare.
Vansen reined up beside his companions. Barrick looked up with glassy, fatalistic eyes. Gyir, his sword already dripping black with blood, stared past him at the Longskulls on either side.
"We are surrounded!" Vansen pulled on the reins, trying to keep his restive, frightened horse from rearing. The pursuers on the hillside had
slowed from a full-tilt run to something more like a walk, hut they still came on. Those at the head of the valley were moving closer now too, so that Vansen and his companions found themselves in the middle of a shrinking circle. Vansen looked for even a tiny opening-he would grab the prince and try to beat his way through-but their captors moved in without any jostling or confusion that might allow such an opening.
They were surrounded by many times their own numbers-perhaps a pentecount or more-but Vansen braced himself for a hopeless charge: bet¬ter to die that way than be stuck as he stood like an exhausted boar at the end of a grueling hunt.
No. No, they've… stopped, he realized. Instead of finishing them off, the Longskulls watched the trio with calm interest, small eyes gleaming beneath heavy browridges, some of them opening and closing their bony, toothless mouths like fish. The two scouts Gyir had killed the night before had been better caparisoned than most of these club-wielding creatures, who wore little more than rags and shreds of chain mail and leather, but there were far more than enough of them to make up for any deficiency in their arms.
Gyir made the first speech-sound Vansen had ever heard from him, a hiss of air like a snake's warning, so loud it could be heard even above the gab¬ble of the surrounding Longskulls. The fairy raised his sword, and Vansen knew beyond doubt that he was about to leap into the nearest mass of them and sell his life dearly, shedding blood and breaking bones, but Vansen knew just as clearly that even a fierce fighter like Gyir would fail and quickly be dragged down by sheer weight of numbers, and that he and Barrick would then follow him into death.
"Gyir, no! Barrick, stop him!" he shouted. "They're not going to kill us."
The fairy-man took a step forward. Vansen leaned down to grab at Gyir. He caught the collar of the fairy-man's cloak and hung on. The Storm Lantern's strength was surprising-Vansen was almost dragged out of the saddle, even with both legs gripping and his hand locked on the horn. "Curse you, give over!" he grunted at the fairy."They mean to take us alive! Look at them!"
Barrick, after a moment of indecision, suddenly leaped forward and grabbed at Gyir's other arm. Trembling, the fairy-warrior turned on the young prince with a look of something like hatred, his eyes the only part of his face that lived, two burning slashes in the ivory mask. After a mo¬ment, though, he lowered his bloodstained blade. The Longskulls moved closer, hooting quietly, and began to disarm their new prisoners.
"We are catch, it scorns," Vansen said to the prince. "Better to surren-der than die needlessly, Highness. For the living, there is always hope."
"Or torture." Barrick was shoved roughly to the ground even as he spoke. The prince's voice was flat and lifeless. "We will be slaves if we are lucky, or meat for their larders." A moment later Vansen had been shoved down to his knees beside him. The Longskulls fastened heavy chains around his arms and a hard, rough rope around his throat, then the same was done to Barrick and Gyir.
One of the Longskulls stepped forward and honked imperiously as he tugged on the rope around the prince's neck, forcing him to rise. For a mo¬ment it looked like Gyir might go mad when his own rope was pulled, but Vansen put out his hand and Gyir stilled, then allowed himself to be led. The Longskulls shared a gabbling hiss that might have been laughter. The creatures smelled of swamp mud and something else, an odor sharp and sour as vinegar.
As they trudged back up the dark hill they had ridden down such a short while before, Ferras Vansen could hear the heart-rending screams of his horse in the valley behind them as the Longskulls began to hack it into pieces.
Slaves or meat, he thought, feeling as hollow as a lightning-burned tree. My horse is meat, but we are slaves-and still alive. At least for now.