“And I,” King Tedric said, “need to discuss with my heirs how much trade we wish to open with the Old World. They are the ones who will need to deal with the undoubted complications that will arise, so they should have a say.”
Firekeeper nodded, as did Blind Seer. Then she pushed herself to her feet. “You plan your hunt. We will not howl too soon and scare the prey. Now, we wish so much to stay, but too much is still to be decided. By now, everyone will have rested some and talked and maybe Uaid is no longer unconscious and we can learn more. Time to find out where the trail will take us next.”
“Be careful,” Queen Elexa said in her sweet, gentle voice, “dear children. You’ve wandered into something too much like those stories I told you when you were newly come to human lands. Remember, not all of those stories had happy endings.”
The humans were deep in discussion when Firekeeper and Blind Seer emerged from the gate into the tiled room, but they turned as one to greet the wolves.
“Did you find King Tedric?” Laria asked anxiously.
“Did,” Firekeeper said, sinking down to take a place near Laria in the rough circle. As she did, she assessed what the positions the humans had taken told her. Laria sat next to Arasan, who sat next to Wythcombe. Ranz was beside Wythcombe. Then there was a gap. Next came Kalyndra, then Ynamynet.
Firekeeper grinned to herself that she’d been correct in assuming that the two would not immediately return to the Nexus Islands, no matter what they had implied.
There was another gap, then Uaid, then Daylily. Then yet another gap, which brought the circle around to Laria again. Firekeeper and Blind Seer had slid into the opening between Laria and Daylily, who had moved over politely—or perhaps at the idea of seating herself next to an enormous wolf. Glancing up, Firekeeper saw Farborn was perched on the sill of one of the unbroken windows, busy devouring something the size of a mouse.
“I have the disk piece,” Farborn said by way of greeting, “set here on the ledge beside me. Wythcombe has looked at it hungrily a time or two, but I think more because the scent of its mana keeps catching his attention than because he means to seize it. Kalyndra and Ynamynet are being very polite about pretending not to be too interested.”
“And you are well,” Blind Seer asked. “You have felt no influence from it?”
“These new feet of mine,”—the merlin examined his crystal-enshrouded talons—let me feel not only that this is not just a bit of pretty stone, but shield me from it as well.”
The conversation between the wolves and the falcon took hardly as long as Firekeeper and Blind Seer needed to make themselves comfortable. Now Firekeeper continued her report.
“We find King Tedric, and Queen Elexa, and Sir Dirkin Eastbranch—and two others, dear to most of this company. We find Derian and Isende, too.”
The spontaneous cries of delight would have warmed Derian’s heart, reminding him that even if his birth family was struggling to accept all the changes he had been through, he had a community that valued him for what he now was.
Firekeeper gave a quick summary of the meeting, at the end of which Ynamynet nodded in satisfaction. “We will conceal this chamber and its gate until Hawk Haven is ready to open communications. For further protection, we thought to ask one or more of the local yarimaimalom if they would nest or den near here. There are several good possibilities among the creatures who do not roam widely. You will doubtless be off again soon, but we will ask Plik to speak to them for us.”
“Good,” Firekeeper said. “I think King Tedric would let Derian and Isende come home through this gate, but on this end the way is too small for Eshinarvash. Derian would not let him travel alone.”
“We’d actually been discussing that—not Eshinarvash, specifically, but how difficult this room is to get into.” Kalyndra said. “There is a door. Eventually, we could excavate the passageway that connects to it. We might even find that some of the original walls remain standing, so all we’d need to do is clear away whatever was used to fill it in.”
“I could help,” said an unfamiliar male voice. “If you’d let me. I am very good with earth magics.”
From how everyone started, this was the first time Uaid had spoken. The Rhinadei rebel still looked pale and exhausted, but no longer as if he was on the verge of death. Daylily quickly offered Uaid a camping mug of something that smelled strongly of stimulant herbs. Uaid began to wave it away, realized he was being overly proud, and accepted it with a nod.
“Up to this point, you have talked around a matter than means a great deal to me and Daylily,” Uaid said, “and that’s what you plan to do with us.”
Daylily nodded. “I’ve done my best to answer all your questions about what we have been through since we left what Wythcombe calls Mount Ambition. I’ve even told you about the Voice. I have the impression that Ynamynet is a person of importance on the Nexus Islands—the ruler along with this Derian. Can you at least give us an idea what you will say about us to your council?”
Uaid added, “We left Rhinadei. We don’t want to go back. We wouldn’t even if we didn’t think we’d face execution. We made our choices decades ago, and nothing that has happened has really changed our minds.”
Wythcombe couldn’t quite hide the sneer in his voice. “So you still are interested in the anathema art? Even after you’ve seen how easily it can be abused?”
“Anything can be abused,” Daylily shot back, “even rectitude. I’d rather learn how to use blood magic properly, which is what I always wanted, than run scared. In any case, in Rhinadei the best we can hope for is being made an object lesson. More likely, we’d be executed so we could provide a really big object lesson.”
Ynamynet was looking with interest at Uaid. “Earth magic? Talent or spellcasting?”
“Both,” Uaid said with honest pride.
Ynamynet turned to Daylily. “And you? Your name is ‘Daylily.’ Do you specialize in plants?”
“I specialize in not specializing,” Daylily replied. “I’m interested in how the different magical channels interrelate—which is why I was interested in learning blood magic, because it’s one of the very few forms of magic that exists to enhance, rather than having a purpose of its own.”
“Interesting…”
Ynamynet exchanged a glance with Kalyndra. Firekeeper didn’t need to have Blind Seer’s sense of smell to know that, beneath her cool as usual exterior, Ynamynet was excited. Firekeeper knew why. The Nexus Islands was caught in a snare. Its livelihood depended on spellcasting, but recruiting spellcasters from outside the community was extremely dangerous, because the Nexans could never be quite sure if they were recruiting a potential traitor. The two Rhinadeians would feel no conflict of interest between their new home and their birthland, for they could never hope to be accepted in Rhinadei.
“We’ll definitely consider your appeal,” Ynamynet said, with what for her was a warm smile. “But I’ll say right now, Kabot would not be welcome. He attacked Laria. He may have been in a panic. He may have been overwhelmed by that artifact he carries, but we have no room for any who cannot control themselves.”
Wythcombe nodded sadly. “No matter what led Kabot to those actions, he has stepped over the line into anathema.”
“And now Kabot has two potent magical artifacts,” Ranz added, not quite hiding a certain envy, “or one and a half? Or parts of a greater whole. I still don’t understand what we’re dealing with.”
All eyes turned to Arasan, and Chsss raised his arms in an elaborate shrug. “I don’t know either, but if you’ll let me take a closer look at what we have, I’m willing to make a guess.”
Blind Seer growled when Firekeeper rose to let Arasan inspect Hohdoymin’s necklace. Chsss waved a hand dismissively in the air.
“Don’t bother to translate. He’ll find a way to get me if I try anything, even if it means hurting Arasan. I get it. I wish you would trust me more.”
“After you put almost everyone into a trance with Arasan’s music?” Firekee
per asked. “If Blind Seer and Farborn not hear differently than humans’ ears do, then maybe we not able to defeat Kabot.”
“I told you I was sorry,” Chsss said, but his tone was distracted. “Do me a favor. Take the necklace and rotate it slowly through your hands so I can examine it a little at a time. Thank you.” His vision unfocused and his expression went slack, but Blind Seer could smell a new intensity to his aura. After a long while, Chsss sighed, shook his head, and waved to Firekeeper that she could stop turning the necklace. “Most of what is strung on this necklace are mere trinkets, especially the ones that look most like they should be powerful artifacts. A few hold slight charms, depleted from age. I feel certain that Hohdoymin had no idea how powerful an item he had in this doubled disk that our new friends tell us is Teyvalkay. Kalyndra, I believe you said Hohdoymin wasn’t a spellcaster?”
“No, or Nalrmyna would have kept him longer.”
Chsss nodded crisply. “Firekeeper, take the necklace and go sit next to Blind Seer. Let him reassure himself I haven’t taken liberties. Can Farborn bring his prize down here? I’d like to compare it with Teyvalkay.”
Blind Seer said to Farborn. “Bring it down. Give it to Laria to hold. Stay with her. If Chsss tries anything, go for his eyes.”
The merlin shrieked laughter, then soared down and landed lightly on Laria’s forearm, carefully setting the torn artifact in her open palm. Laria looked astonished, but obediently extended her hand so that Chsss could examine the broken disk.
“Prettier than Teyvalkay,” Chsss said, “even damaged as it is. Do we have a name for it?”
Daylily shook her head no, but Uaid said, his deep voice surprised, “You know, I think I do. I must have picked it up when Kabot was taking liberties with my mana. It’s called Xixavalkay.”
Once again, Chsss’s eyes unfocused as he studied the artifact. “Very like Teyvalkay. Being broken seems to have tightened the conduit through which a user can tap the mana Xixavalkay is tied into—presumably that of the New World.” He shivered and, for once, Blind Seer didn’t think the reaction was entirely theatrical. “I am not exaggerating when I say that whoever possesses all four of these threads would possess the sort of power usually reserved for deities. And that in handing these over to merely human sorcerers, Jyanee the Unweaver was either very unwise or deliberately courting the destruction of a great part of the world. I’d love to get a close look at Palvalkay, which was apparently associated with Pelland, since Tishiolo is part of Pelland. Did she make any provisions for her own safety?”
“A good question,” Ynamynet said, “and not as frivolous as it might seem. I am also from Pelland, but Tishiolo has always been separate—both culturally and physically. The mountains that cut them off from the rest of the continent are only the smallest element in the divide. Recall how, in the story Daylily told us, Jyanee wanted to study at what was probably a small magical academy, although the University of Azure Towers was just over the mountains. It is completely possible that this Unweaver was able to protect her tiny homeland. Perhaps she wasn’t a crazed egoist. Perhaps she expected the people to whom she gave the threads to make similar choices.”
Brow furrowed, Wythcombe said, “Daylily, you told us that the legend the Voice related to you indicated that there were four threads: Sykavalkay. We apparently have Teyvalkay and part of Xixavalkay. Kabot has Palvalkay and the other part of Xixavalkay. Did your Voice give you any idea where the fourth thread might be?”
“No,” Daylily said, frowning. “Kabot may have known more than he told us, but I wonder… He really didn’t seem to know where we were, either when we were in what I now know was Tey-yo, or Hawk Haven. He just followed the threads.”
“Then that’s what we’re going to need to do as well,” Chsss said, waving for Laria and Farborn to step back. “This time we have a head start. If we believe the legend of the Unweaver, she said that the four threads were tied to the four largest landmasses. Having just spent a great deal of time with Urgana’s excellent globe, I can tell you which the fourth landmass is: Rhinadei.”
“But where in Rhinadei?” Ranz asked, his voice tight with the anxiety of someone who suddenly feels how very vulnerable his family might be.
Chsss gave one of his eloquent shrugs. “Kabot has a start on us, no matter what we do, so we might as well go back to the Nexus Islands and see if we can narrow down where we need to go, either using the threads or as we did before or by tracking this Voice.”
He grinned, and met Blind Seer’s gaze with a challenge so direct that the wolf felt his hackles rise. “A Voice who is not me, no matter what you’re thinking. I’m on your side. Believe it.”
His sweat smelled of excitement and something that reassured Blind Seer—of fear. Not fear of Blind Seer. The wolf knew that particular odor well enough. Fear of the one they were pursuing. Not of Kabot, but of the one who had decided to Meddle with Kabot’s life.
“Will Rhinadei let us continue our hunt?” Firekeeper asked Blind Seer. The two of them were alone on the mainland not far from the Setting Sun Stronghold, where Blind Seer had gone to hunt so he would be fortified for the next stage of their journey. The humans were also preparing for what they hoped would be their final chase.
“Wythcombe must speak for us,” Blind Seer said. “If he is not eloquent enough, I think we will continue our hunt, whether or not they ‘let’ us. There is too much at risk for us not to do so. And while others might claim to be experts on artifacts, only we are experts on Meddlers. This other Meddler worries me even more than does Kabot.”
“Then you do believe there is another? That this is not just our Meddler playing games?”
“I think it is another, but whether ‘our’ Meddler is also playing games, that I cannot say.”
Firekeeper sighed. “I wonder if this other Meddler had been watching Rhinadei for a long while. After querinalo, Rhinadei was the only land with spellcasters of any great ability. But this Meddler needed rebels. One such as Wythcombe would have meekly handed Sykavalkay over to his land’s elders—especially since it was created by one who used blood magic.”
Blind Seer’s ears flickered back in what for a human would have been a slight frown. “You are wrong if you think Wythcombe is meek. Even when starving, a father wolf will regurgitate meat for his nursing mate or small pups. Wythcombe acknowledges that he is part of a pack.”
Firekeeper shifted her shoulders to better carry the deer carcass that represented Blind Seer’s leftovers. “Yes. But who are Wythcombe’s pack now? The Rhinadei counsel? We eight who have hunted Kabot? Perhaps Kabot? Kabot has a hold over him still, even though Wythcombe denies it.”
“There I cannot disagree, but even my nose cannot sniff out the nature of that hold, for it is so complex that not even Wythcombe himself understands it.”
X
ONCE AGAIN, KABOT awoke to discover that he had escaped the post-overextension hangover. Guilt washed over him as he considered this miracle, because he suspected that his rapid recovery was due to the mana he’d taken from Uaid. But wallowing in guilt would get him nothing, and the best way to pay Uaid back was to turn events in his favor. Then Kabot could apologize, maybe even offer Uaid and Daylily a share of his find.
Pushing himself to his feet, Kabot examined his surroundings. They were completely unfamiliar, but somehow they felt familiar. When he reached out to analyze the local mana, the reason for that familiarity struck him like a blow. He was back in Rhinadei. Where in Rhinadei, he didn’t know, but definitely Rhinadei. Kabot wondered why he felt so certain when he hadn’t had the least idea where they had arrived after the last two transits. Could it be that people actually had a mystic connection to their birthlands?
Then Kabot realized that the reason for his instant recognition was nothing so mystic or poetic. Simply put, his surroundings shared something that he had last felt on Rhinadei—a powerful mana surge.
“Therefore,” he said aloud, attempting to push away the creeping aloneness he felt without Daylily
and Uaid, “am I actually in Rhinadei, or am I merely somewhere that, like Rhinadei, has mana surges?”
“You got it in one,” the Voice replied. Kabot could have sworn he heard the words with his ears, not inside his head. “You’re in Rhinadei.”
“To answer your question, you are and you aren’t hearing me,” the Voice continued, sounding less like Phiona than ever. “Let’s leave it at that. There really are more important things for us to discuss. You don’t think that Wythcombe will not be after you once again, do you? He might catch up even faster this time, now that Uaid and Daylily have been captured and can report on your goals.”
“I think you’re right.” Kabot faced how his friends would react with brutal honesty. “Just a few moments ago, Daylily was screaming Uaid’s name as she tried to claw my eyes out. I don’t think Uaid will feel any more kindly toward me.”
“Precisely.”
“Well, at least I don’t seem to have arrived in a crumbling ruin this time,” Kabot said, turning slowly to examine his surroundings.
“Room” was too pedestrian a term for the massive area in which he now stood. The chamber’s floor was black marble, inlaid with an elaborate design in gold. The walls were covered with absolutely impossible quantities of rose quartz. The inner portion of the ceiling was domed, the black marble ornamented with constellations worked in silver and precious stones. The stars glittered in improbable colors, as if they had dressed up for a formal ball.
Kabot almost overlooked the crystalline pillars that defined an elegant circular border beneath the dome, although they were each as big around as a broad-shouldered man. The pillars were faceted on six sides, looking—other than their enormous size—like natural quartz crystals. The room’s light was emitted by the crystal pillars, providing ample to see by without washing out the sparkling starscape above. Although this chamber was definitely not a ruin, it shared something with the ruins in which he had been residing of late. After a moment, Kabot had it. There was a similar sense of desertion.
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