The visitor did not appear to understand her words, but she watched intently as Hedda crouched down, unwrapping a square of worn linen cloth from the thick heel of bread and slab of hard cheese that it guarded. Breaking off a piece of each, she moved away from the basket and held them out to the girl.
Hunger flashed in her eyes—or so it seemed to Hedda—but still she did not move.
“It’s all right. I have enough. Please, take it.”
Again she held it out to her. Again the girl did not respond.
Slowly, warily, her hand still upon her knife, she walked a short distance toward the girl. She was close enough to detect her smell now, an odd mix of stale sweat and sweet musk. Like the rest of her, it was both fascinating and repellent. “Here.” She lowered herself carefully, never letting down her guard, and placed the bread and cheese on a flat rock nearby. “This is for you.”
She backed away.
For a moment she thought the girl was still not going to move. Then the thin limbs stirred, and she began to walk slowly toward the food, her eyes never leaving Hedda’s. Her movements were angular and ungraceful, but it seemed more a consequence of habit than of weakness; she picked her way over the rough terrain like a bird might, head jerking with each step. When she reached the food, she glanced down briefly, just long enough to pick it up, and then her eyes fixed on Hedda once more as she bit deeply into the piece of bread, tearing loose a chunk and swallowing it whole, as an animal might gulp down meat.
Heart pounding, Hedda watched her eat. That she was hungry was clear enough. That she was something other than a young girl lost in the woods—for however long—was becoming equally clear. What if this were some sort of supernatural visitation? Hedda had heard tales of spirits who took on human form to work mischief; might not one of them look just like this? Her hand closed instinctively about the hilt of her knife as she watched the girl finish off the last of the offering. Should she give her the rest of the food? Sometimes spirits would leave you alone if you were generous enough. At least that’s what her grandmother had told her. Hedda wished she’d paid more attention to the old woman when she was a child, so she might know what sort of spirit this was and how she could get it to go away.
Finally the girl was finished eating. She looked at Hedda for a moment, then started down the slope toward her.
Hedda drew in a sharp breath. There was nothing overtly threatening about her, but every instinct in her maternal heart was crying out for her to keep this strange girl away from the baby. But had the girl even seen him? If Hedda moved the basket away from her now, wouldn’t that just reveal how precious its contents were? Frozen with indecision, she settled for positioning herself over the basket, so that the stranger would have to go through her to get to her baby. Much as a mother wolf might position herself over her cub while the shadow of a hawk passed over them both.
The girl came close. Too close. Her sickly sweet smell filled Hedda’s nostrils as she picked her way down the hill, closing the distance between them.
Stay back, Hedda thought. Her hand tightened on her knife.
And then the girl was directly in front of her. Those strange hooded eyes locked on her own, transfixing her. Such darkness in those eyes! Such hunger! Their form and color was human, but their substance was something very different. An alien madness, nameless and terrible, seemed to shimmer in their depths.
“Stay back,” she whispered. Suddenly very afraid.
The world began to spin about her. She tried to draw her knife from its sheath, but it fell from her hand and clattered to the ground beside the basket. She heard the sound as if from a distance. Too late, it occurred to her that she must have been bewitched. She should have grabbed up the basket and run away while she’d still had the chance, she realized.
It was too late now.
She tried to scream, but her voice would not come. She tried to run, but her body would not obey her. She tried to pray, but the gods did not respond
Stay back!
The world began to fade around her. Colors seeped out of the landscape like dye bleeding out of a wet garment. A sudden wave of vertigo overcame her, and it took all her strength not to be sick. And then—
The sky overhead was clear and blue.
The girl was gone.
Blinking, Hedda swallowed back on the sour taste in the back of her throat, trying to get her bearings. A breeze gusted briefly across her face, chilling the film of sweat on her skin. Every muscle in her body ached, as though she had just run a long distance.
Weakly, she raised herself up on one elbow. She must have passed out and fallen. Some yards away, the pile of laundry she’d been working on was nearly dry now. Hours must have passed since she had lost consciousness.
The basket was a few feet away from her. Thank the gods she hadn’t landed on top of it and crushed the baby! Pushing herself up to a sitting position, she reached out and pulled it toward her. Her hands were shaking as she did so, and she muttered an apology to her poor child for leaving him alone for so long. How hungry he must be!
Then she looked into the basket, and her heart froze in her chest.
Her son was gone.
She could see the hollow place where he had last rested. If she lowered her face to that spot, she could still smell him there, his scent intermingled with that of her Ladyship’s sweat. But there was another smell there as well, foreign and foul, that made bile rise in the back of her throat.
She turned away just in time. Waves of sickness wracked her body, and she vomited beside the basket. Horror and loss were expelled in a gush of foul-tasting liquid, again and again, until finally her body—like her soul—was empty. Then she lay on her side on the hard, cold granite, wrapped her arms around her chest, and began to shiver violently, as if winter’s cold had descended upon her. She was so lost in spirit now that she no longer knew where she was, or even exactly what had happened . . . only that a part of her soul had been stolen away from her and she did not know how to go on without it.
Later, when her mind could function again, she would think about following the girl’s trail. Later her husband would remind her that a skilled woodsman would know what signs to look for, and if an ordinary man couldn’t find them, then a witch certainly could. They’d find the money to hire one, somehow. He would promise her that.
For now, she simply wept.
Chapter 4
T
HE LAND stretches out in all directions as far as the eye can see. Dry earth, cracked and gray, crumbles to dust beneath Colivar’s feet. Here and there a tiny sapling has taken root, but only precariously; the narrow leaves, thin and dry, curl defensively beneath the blazing sun.
Kneeling in the dirt, he struggles to tend to the saplings. Now and then he pours water over one of them from the wooden bucket by his side, but it is never enough. The ground soaks up the precious stuff within seconds, entrapping it too deeply for the saplings’ shallow root system to access. And there are so many of them! Even if the water were able to do them any good, he hasn’t got enough to supply them all. Some of them are clearly going to have to die so that the rest might live.
A shadow passes overhead. Wiping the sweat from his brow with a dirt-stained sleeve, he looks up at the sky. The southern sun is a cruel thing, and its heat drains the strength from a man’s body in a manner that he will never get used to. It takes him a moment to focus his eyes against the blazing light and to see what is up there, silhouetted against the sun.
Wings.
Jeweled panels of living glass filter the sunlight, sending shadows of blue and green and violet shimmering across the parched earth. When they pass over the saplings, the slender plants seem to tremble in response. Then, one by one, the plants wilt and fade, shrinking down into the ground until there is nothing of them but desiccated skeletons, crumbling in the hot wind.
The sweat of utter frustration films Colivar’s skin as he watches. His exhaustion is physical, but also spiritual. For he was the one who planted th
ese saplings, so long ago, and each one that dies now takes a part of him with it.
You knew back then that they would probably die, he tells himself. You promised yourself you would not come to care about them. Remember?
One of the violet shadows is headed his way. He throws himself down over the nearest sapling, shielding it with his body. But when the shadow has passed and he rises again, he sees that he has crushed it beneath his own body. Killed it.
What a fool he was, to think that a creature such as he could nurture life!
A Souleater has landed on the ground before him. Its long neck undulates like a serpent as its head seeks out the remaining saplings, and it begins to yank them from the earth. It is one indignity too many for Colivar. Rage lends new strength to his aching limbs as he braces himself to confront the creature, to drive it away or die trying.
And then its form shifts. Colors shimmer in the sunlight, blue-black hide and jeweled wings rippling as they transform into . . . something else.
A woman.
Siderea.
“Forget this place,” his ex-lover whispers. “Forget all that you have become since you cheated death so long ago. Let go of your human half,, and I will make a place for you by my side. You know that is what you really want. It’s the same thing you’ve always wanted. I can give it to you now.”
The human part of his brain recognizes the trap for what it is, but the other half, the forgotten half, does not care. His blood is stirred by the sound of her words, the scent of her flesh. Suddenly the saplings do not matter to him anymore. Memories are taking over now, of a life he has struggled for centuries to forget. The agonizingly beautiful downstroke of jeweled wings. The cold, fierce wind cutting into his skin. The anguish of his rivals as they spiral down into blackness, to be shattered on the rocks far below.
No! His human self cries out a warning, but he no longer speaks its language.
Stumbling, he begins to move toward her.
And her body shimmers again.
And changes.
It takes him a minute to recognize what form she is taking now. When he does, the shock of it stops him dead in his tracks.
The red-headed witch smiles at him. “Hello, Colivar.” Hearing her voice, the Souleaters overhead wheel about and begin to head toward her. “I hear you’ve been looking for me.”
Colivar awakened with a start.
For a moment he just lay there in bed, his heart pounding. Then, with a quick gesture of conjuration, he lit the lamps on the far side of the room. Amber warmth filled the space, soft and reassuring. He drew in a deep breath and bound enough athra to quiet his pounding heart. But mere sorcery could not quiet his spirit.
It was a dream, he told himself. Nothing more.
Of course, even his dreams were suspect now. If Siderea had found a new source of power, she might well be playing with the minds of her ex-lovers. Courtesy had stayed her hand in the past—or perhaps just the thought of what the Magisters would do to her if they caught her using witchery on them—but there were no limits in her world now. And Colivar knew from examining the emotional traces she had left behind in Sankara just how much she hated the Magisters. True, his dream had contained some references to things Siderea could not possibly know about, so the whole of the dream had not been sent by her, but that didn’t mean that some part of it hadn’t been, and his own mind had dressed it up with additional details.
And then there was the matter of the red-headed witch.
He remembered how casually Kamala had used her power in Kierdwyn. As if it cost her nothing. And he remembered the chill echoes of sorcery that he had detected in her abandoned room in Gansang. They’d assumed at the time that those had been the mark of some unnamed Magister who was acting as her patron, but now that he’d had a chance to observe her more closely, he was willing to bet that she walked—and worked—alone. Which left only one possible conclusion.
Call her a Magister, he dared himself.
There was so much power in that title! And, of course, one’s own identity was revealed in how one applied it. If Ramirus were to name Kamala a Magister, he would merely be stating that she had mastered sorcery and now lived as a parasite, robbing morati of their lives in order to sustain her own. But Colivar understood more about the Magisters’ true nature than Ramirus did. For him, the title resonated with myriad forgotten secrets, fears and failures and betrayals that the others of his kind were not even aware of. If he called a witch by that forbidden name, he would be declaring that she was a part of a complex tapestry they did not even know existed . . . and that she carried the seed of Colivar’s own personal torment within her veins.
How strangely arousing that thought was! It stirred his blood in ways he had not felt in some time. And it raised all sorts of questions about his own nature, questions he’d thought were settled long ago. A heady combination for any Magister.
But most important of all, it gave him something to think about other than Siderea’s palace and the presence that he had detected there. Which had caused him many a sleepless night already, and would doubtless continue to do so.
Sorcery had yet to find a cure for nightmares.
By the time Colivar arrived at the meeting, the others were already there. He could sense their presence before he entered the room, and for a moment he hesitated, wondering if he really wanted to join them. The presence of other sorcerers was disturbing enough on a good day, and the fact that he had detected the scent of a Souleater queen at Siderea’s palace was not helping matters. It was one thing to find a nest full of eggs and speculate that at some point a queen might have passed through the area, but it was another to drink in that intoxicating scent with every breath, to feel the magical traces of a queen’s presence vibrate beneath your fingertips, and to know that a former lover might now be bound to her, sharing that ultimate intimacy.
All things considered, he would much rather go home right now and isolate himself with his thoughts than have to face others of his kind. But he needed the information that would be shared in this meeting; there was simply no way around that. And so, drawing in a deep breath, he pushed open the door and entered the chamber, trying to look more composed than he felt.
Lazaroth, Ramirus, and Sulah stood respectfully as he entered. They had positioned themselves on three sides of a heavy trestle table, using the piece of furniture as a shield between them. At one time Colivar might have been amused by that, but these days even the most casual gesture seemed ominous to him. The beast that lay coiled at the heart of each Magister understood what its relationship to its own kind was—even if its host was not consciously aware of it—and was perpetually bracing itself for combat.
“Magisters.” Colivar acknowledged Lazaroth’s role as host with a brief nod of respect, then took the place that had been prepared for him, at the fourth side of the table. Power rippled between the Magisters in the warm Kierdwyn air, tendrils of sorcery testing, anticipating, exploring. There was a time when so many Magisters could not even have been in the same room together, much less shared any kind of civilized conversation. Colivar glanced at Ramirus, and saw by the furrowing of his brow that he was remembering that time, too. Sometimes it seemed like yesterday. Should they have taught their apprentices more about that part of their past? For Colivar that would have required too much explanation, too much vulnerability. He had secrets that required forgetfulness. And doubtless Ramirus had made a similar choice. So now the younger Magisters were defined by their ignorance, just as the older ones were by their memories. Colivar thought he knew which category Lazaroth fell into, but with sorcerers you could never be sure; a man might change his flesh and play the role of a newcomer just for the novelty of it. Only when you brought a man through First Transition yourself did you know for certain just how old he was.
“Ramirus, Colivar, Sulah . . . I thank you for coming.” Lazaroth nodded to each of them in turn. “Back when you all assisted with the Alkali campaign, I promised to keep you informed of what we d
iscovered there. Today I will make good on that promise. Please feel free to ask any questions you like, and if you have information to offer in return, it would certainly be welcome.” A corner of his mouth twitched: the fleeting hint of a cold smile. “Admittedly, our kind are generally more disposed to hoarding information than sharing it. But I think you will agree that the return of an ancient enemy calls for new strategies.
“Kierdwyn’s Seers have investigated the breach in the Wrath. Independent witches from Alkali were also brought in, to confirm their findings. I would not have chosen to trust the Alkali in this matter had I been the one making that decision, but the breach took place inside that Protectorate, so Lord Kierdwyn felt they could not rightfully be excluded.”
No doubt the delicate Seers would have preferred to march straight into Hell itself rather than get within range of the Wrath, Colivar thought. The willingness of the Guardians to sacrifice themselves never ceased to amaze him. Then again, were they not descended from the same witches and warriors who had offered up their lives centuries ago, to save the world from ruin? Sacrifice was in their blood. They sucked it in along with their mothers’ milk.
Yet even such a heritage can be corrupted, he thought soberly. Even a hero may do terrible things, if circumstances drive him to it.
“Apparently a number of ikati have already crossed into the south,” Lazaroth continued. “As we feared might be the case.”
“How many?” Sulah asked.
He shook his head. “Unclear. The impressions are hard to detect, for obvious reasons. Very few of the creatures made physical contact with the terrain—at least in the places we have searched—so there are few anchors to focus on. Most of the traces that do exist appear to have been left by a single Souleater, apparently connected with Nyuku.”
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