by Carol Berg
I was sprawled across the step at the base of a stone platform. Galadon lay beside me, his limbs straight, his wild hair tamed. Catrin must have put him there from wherever I had dropped him.
“Rhys escaped. And the demon.”
As I sat up, feeling as if I’d just crawled out from under an avalanche, Catrin returned, bringing a small bowl filled with water. With the strip of linen that had bound my eyes, she dabbed at a nasty cut on my forehead. “Are you going to sit here and recount your failures, or are you going to get up and prepare for the Second Battle? Your enemies believe you’re dead. You can’t let them know otherwise.”
My enemies. I had never thought of myself as having enemies except for the demons. Even the Derzhi had no personal antipathy for me, no interest in my identity. One barbarian slave was the same as another. But I had just been singled out for murder of the most horrific kind. And only by the grace of ... I moved Catrin’s hand aside so I could see her. “You held the second portal. Somehow you merged your weaving with Ysanne’s to let us in. And I wasn’t prepared, not able to do my part. How in the name of sense did you manage such a thing?” I searched her face for some hint of the voice that had called me back, but she was intent on business.
She pushed my chin around again so she could finish wiping the blood from my head. At the same moment I felt the prickle of enchantment and a stinging tightening of the skin that meant she had closed the wound to stop the bleeding. It was a quick, but not particularly good method for healing, and it would leave a scar, but I suppose she thought one more wasn’t going to bother me. Only then did she answer. “I told you I’ve not been idle. I can do more than bake almond cakes. Now you must—”
“Does anyone else know you’ve done this? Or that you’re capable? Rhys and Ysanne will be looking for the one who did it. They’ve already killed.” It was unbearable to think of it. Ysanne had been fostered so young that she had known little of her parents. She had always called Galadon her only true father. How could she have left him to die in an infested soul?
“Only Grandfather knew what I can do. But it’s vital that you remain dead for a while. You must come with me and do exactly as I say.” She dragged me up by my arm, and either the discomfort of the dragging or the discomfort of my thoughts fueled rebellion. Catrin did not seem to bring out the best in me. I must have mistaken her words in the chaos beyond the portal.
I yanked my arm from her grasp, which hurt me more than it did her, and I pointed an accusing finger at the still smiling Galadon. “I think I’ve had enough mysteries and surprises for one day. I’ll not go one step farther until you tell me the whole scheme this nefarious old buzzard has left us to play out.”
She didn’t want to hear it. “We need to go. Now. When we have time, I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
But Galadon’s blood still stained my hands, and I could not rejoice in the gift he had given me until I knew why he had to die to give it. I sat on the platform beside my old mentor and refused to budge. “I will not believe your grandfather died just to persuade me that he was right and I was wrong about power and faith. I have to know, Catrin.”
“Idiot boy.” She set her jaw and fumed and rolled her eyes, but eventually she sank to the other stone platform, her knees almost touching mine. “This is the last time I will allow you to question my judgment, Seyonne. My grandfather has entrusted your training to me. No, don’t interrupt. Most of what you have done so far has been of my devising, and you have most assuredly progressed. But you’re not yet ready for what we believe must come.”
The rain splashed on the roof and the steps, and the treetops beyond our little sanctuary whipped in the storm winds. The jasnyr-scented smoke danced around us as Catrin told me something of the past and something of the future. Not all of either one, for she was an Aife, who shared only what it was necessary for the Warden to know. But enough.
“Grandfather suspected for many years that things were not right with Rhys. In his third battle after passing his testing, he lost his partner. It was a difficult case, and he barely made it out alive. Vedwyn held the portal too long ... to give him time to get out ... and she never recovered from it. Her mind was dead, and it was only a few weeks until her body gave up and died, too.”
I remembered Vedwyn—a shy, modest girl of great talent, who made everyone uncomfortable with her quiet insistence on correctness. She had adored Rhys, but he spent half his youth avoiding her. An ill-fated pairing it would have been.
“Rhys refused to fight again after that, but we lost our last four Wardens that year one after the other. It was devastating. We had only students left. Children. So Grandfather worked with Rhys. Rhys insisted on going through his testing again, and he did much better than the first time. His concentration was ferocious. The Queen ...”
Catrin darted her eyes at me uncertainly, but I motioned her to go on. “She tried to kill me tonight,” I said. “You’re not going to say anything that will make it worse.”
She hesitated for a moment longer, then shook her head. “The Queen and Rhys had been living together for several years, and as the most skilled and experienced Aife, she took him as her partner. It gave us heart to see it, especially when he came back with one victory after another. But ten years ago we began to lose Searchers and Comforters at a terrible rate, and the Queen at last recalled all but one pairing, saying it was too dangerous to have them out. Every new Warden trained fell within months. When Grandfather found out about the demon bargain, he feared that Rhys had been compromised and blamed himself for not recognizing it from the beginning. And of course it signaled exactly what you have discovered—that the demons have been brought to some common purpose by their hosts. But he dared not confront Rhys until ...”
“... until I came.”
“He had to have a Warden left to continue if something happened to him. His students were either dead or not yet ready, and his belief that you would come back was unshakable. And so he spent his time devising the method to use the second portal. Once you were here and progressing well, he thought to use it for your testing, to see if you could discover Rhys’s game. That was all. Until tonight he didn’t plan to do what he did.”
“So why did he?”
“Because we have no time left.” Catrin knotted her fingers together in her lap and fixed her eyes on them. “The demons have demanded that we yield all Khelid souls. This morning, at a meeting of the Queen and the Mentor’s Council, Rhys told of it. He said he refused. That he told the rai-kirah that we could do no such thing, for we were pledged to yield no soul without combat. The demons claim that the Khelid are willing hosts, but as a concession to our custom, they have proposed a new bargain.”
“And what’s that?”
“We will fight one battle—single combat—for the entire Khelid race.”
I leaped to my feet. “Madness! Ysanne will never do it. She couldn’t possibly. ...” I could scarcely speak my dismay. Betraying me was one thing—protecting Rhys, desire, anger, whatever it was. But to betray everything ... centuries of struggle and sacrifice and heroism ... an entire race. “She can’t do it.”
“It is already done. She says the demons will hunt us down and destroy us if we don’t agree.”
I returned to the place where Galadon lay, as if the tether that bound us still held and I might find some comfort or resolution in his stillness. But the voice that had shaped my life was silent. Catrin fixed her gaze on me, watching to see if I understood.
Bleakly, crushingly, I understood. “The demons plan for Rhys to fight. And Rhys, the blind, stupid fool, thinking he can stick his hand in fire and not get burned ... believes he can win. But he won’t. They’ve been allowing him to win. To pretend. But not this time.”
“Grandfather didn’t know what had precipitated the demons’ threat. He guessed that Rhys was so afraid of you that he revealed something ... made the demons wary. ...”
“It’s Aleksander. They feel him failing, so the time is coming for their grand play.
They want us out of the Khelid so we won’t find out what they’re doing. Rhys’s time is up ... and Ysanne has to know it.” She was going to betray another husband. Was she able to convince herself that this was for the good of the Ezzarians ... or was she truly bound to the demons by her own corruption? Either way the result would be the same. Surrender.
Catrin pushed at me again. “We have to make sure this battle is won.”
The full weight of the night came down upon me then. “Then, I can’t leave here. Nor you. If you can make a second portal like you did tonight. Get me in ...”
Catrin got up and walked to the steps, arms folded, and she looked out on the rain. “The battle will not be fought here. The Queen claims that she must be closer to the one possessed, that she can’t rely on Searchers and Comforters in such an important conflict, and she refuses to have a demon-chosen victim brought into our midst. So she will go to the victim instead and take her champion with her. And she says she must take the Prince, too, as once we’ve freed the Khelid of their demons, she might learn what’s necessary to heal him. A good story is it not?”
“Parnifour,” I said, all the bits and pieces of mystery falling together.
Catrin whirled about. “How did you know?”
“She’s going to bring down the Empire.”
“At least it gives us a little more time.”
I could hardly feel grateful for that. Not with what I knew. “And have the demons said who is the one possessed?”
“A Khelid. His name is Kastavan.”
We rode eastward from Dael Ezzar toward the shrunken moon that was just rising. Catrin had laid an enchantment on her grandfather, to hold him unchanging until we had time to bid him a proper farewell. Then she led me to two horses hidden in the woods beyond the temple, and we were off in the matter of ten minutes. Before very long we were winding down a steep track—not one I would have attempted in the dark and the rain, but Catrin said the horses knew the way and no one else. Galadon had hidden it with spells for many years. Hoffyd was to meet us along the way, bringing Aleksander.
A flash of lightning illuminated the path and the dark crags around us. The moon had been quickly swallowed by the unsettled night. Catrin sat straight in the saddle. Unyielding. There was a great deal more to her than I had ever imagined. It had finally come into my thick head that she was no longer the child I had known, but a lovely, talented young woman, one whose inner strength was unguessable. I wanted to learn more of her, but it wasn’t possible to talk while we rode on the narrow way.
So instead I practiced focus and discipline, and spent the hours reviewing strategies and tactics and battle variations, every move I knew, every experience I’d had, every enchantment I had woven. It was astonishing how precisely I could remember, as if they were childhood treasures laid away in a wooden chest for sixteen years, brought out untouched by time. I was going to need them, everything I could muster, and a great deal of luck besides.
After perhaps three very wet hours, we turned into a narrow cleft in the rocks, scarcely wide enough for a horse. Catrin provided a light until we rode into a dry, firelit cave. A man stood in front of the fire, sword unsheathed, but as soon as Catrin was full in the light, he dropped the weapon and called a greeting. “Catrin! It’s fine to see you. How did it turn out?” It was Hoffyd.
“Just as Grandfather predicted.”
“Ah, sweet Verdonne ... Though I can imagine what pleasure he took in being right. ...”
“We have more rejoicing than mourning to do,” said Catrin. “And more work than either.”
I dismounted, hanging back in the shadows while Catrin exchanged a silent, lingering handclasp with Hoffyd. As he took her wet cloak and urged her nearer the fire, she looked around for me. “Well, come on,” she said. “No need to stand back there dripping.”
I stepped into the light, heading for the fire, keeping my eyes fixed on the flames and cursing myself for a sniveling coward to be so shy of being ignored after all that had happened. So I wasn’t ready for the firm hand on my shoulder or the wry smile beneath the eye patch. “ ‘Pytor,’ eh? Could you have no trust in your own brother-in-law?” He wrapped me in his long arms and squeezed away any possibility of reply. “Couldn’t you guess that Elen’s spirit would come back to give me everlasting torment if I were to cause her little brother one moment’s pain?” He squeezed me again, rubbed my hair, babbled unendingly for the quiet man he was, and shed not a few tears from his one eye before whispering in my ear, “I’m damned glad you’re here. Is it possible to please this cursed Derzhi?”
“Rarely,” I said, grinning at him and not whispering. “Though to be sure his disposition has improved a good deal since I first encountered him. He is only a shengar now.”
“My ears are not dead.” The slurred mumble came from a long roll of blankets on the other side of the fire. Red hair spilled out of one end of the roll.
“I’m glad to hear it, my lord,” I said. “And he has most remarkable hearing. Never believe it if he seems asleep.” Then I pulled Hoffyd toward the cave mouth and asked more seriously how Aleksander fared.
“He knew nothing of the journey. He’s only waked in the last hour, demanding to know of you. When I could tell him nothing, he tried to fight me. He couldn’t even stand up because of the sleeping draught—a matter of great relief to me—but he cursed both himself and me with such a volume of invective as I’ve not read anywhere. And when cursing did not change anything, he began to threaten various forms of murder and mayhem if any hair of your head was harmed. About that time he experienced an ... episode ... dreadful ... and he begged for more of the sleeping draught. I didn’t know what else to do, so I gave it to him.”
“There’s little to do to ease it. Just talk to him. Distract him. Keep his mind working in human channels. And have your sword ready to protect yourself.”
“We’ve no time for getting reacquainted just now,” said Catrin, returning from the back of the cave where she had put the horses. “We all need sleep. We’ve a long journey ahead.”
As I rolled up in a blanket a few steps from Aleksander, I wondered if the journey ahead could be half so long as the way I had just come.
Chapter 30
We traveled hard for the next ten days, though a messenger bird could have covered the same distance in three. We wound through the mountains by way of bandit trails and herdsmen’s tracks. With three sorcerers and a Derzhi warrior in our party, we had little fear of bandits. It was more important to avoid Capharna and the trade routes that spun out of it like a spider’s web. There would be Derzhi spies and Khelid lurkers on those roads, as well as slave hunters from the Magician’s Guild seeking an Ezzarian runaway.
It was the mysterious, primitive wilds of northern Azhakstan we traveled. In one village the inhabitants wore only animal fur; in another they painted their faces with mud. In one settlement they fermented such strong spirits from local berries, that we thought never to leave the place ... or care whether we did or not. Happily for us—or unhappily—Catrin never drank spirits. She shoved and insulted and yelled at us until we were on our horses, then led the three of us down the road until several hours of driving rain brought us back to our painful senses.
One night we accepted the meager hospitality of a small village where no man, woman, or child had a tooth left in their heads. After two years of devastatingly poor hunting, they had decided that their gods—of whom they suspected we might be representatives—did not wish them to eat meat anymore. So they had pulled all their teeth as a way to prevent sin should a stray rabbit or fox show up in their little valley. They were dreadfully malnourished, and Hoffyd spent the evening trying to teach them what local plants were good to eat. Finally, in desperation, he suggested that they had hunted their little valley bare. Perhaps their gods would allow them to move. Aleksander told them of a valley just north of Capharna where he had taken five deer in an hour. The next morning when we woke, the entire population had disappeared. Hoffyd flushed a bril
liant red when we teased him about his “holy teachings,” and Aleksander swore to build him a temple in Capharna.
Mostly we spent days and nights in endless rain, walking, riding, climbing, and descending toward Parnifour and the Second Battle of the Eddaic Prophecy.
Aleksander was physically healthy again, and the lingering weakness that had plagued him in Dael Ezzar had vanished. Being astride a horse seemed to restore him far better than any healer’s remedies, rain or no. But his enchantment continued to get worse. Scarcely an hour passed that he was not subject to a physical or sensory change or one of the horrific visions that accompanied demon spells. I worried that we might damage him by giving him too much of Nevya’s sleeping draught. It took him a long time to come completely awake in the morning, which made that the most dangerous time for him to undergo a change. It was very difficult for him to maintain control when he was so groggy.
Only once in those days did he undergo a complete transformation. It happened in a particularly wild section of the mountains, which was fortunate, as there was no one for him to harm. But it took us eight hours to find him, collapsed in a snowbank beside the bloody remains of an elk. We wrapped him in blankets and built up a towering bonfire, but he sat there dull-eyed and unspeaking until we put him to sleep for the night.
Though he regained his own form after that incident and was capable of speech, he did not regain his spirits. He rode in brooding silence, winding his fingers in Musa’s mane or stroking the horse’s neck. When we stopped for the night, he would take the sleeping draught before eating and fall asleep in mid bite. The most ominous part of the matter was that we could find no trigger. Just as with the lesser incidents, there was no defining activity or thought that precipitated it.
“Are you sure there’s nothing?” I said one day after an hour’s halt to allow his arm to return to human proportion.
Aleksander shook his head and mounted Musa. “I dream shengar dreams. Sometimes I think there is more of it than me anymore.”
