by Carol Berg
“Not a chance in Dimios’s caves they’ll let you speak, little brother. Some are biting crazy that your corpse is not already burning.”
A leaden mantle pressed me back to the straw. My head weighed like a cannonball.
“I’ll have to convince them.” He sounded remote, as if he’d fallen into a barrel. “Here, have another swallow.”
I pressed my lips closed and shook my head. My thick tongue blocked words.
“These are not bad people, Dante, but they’ve this fury about sorcery. They’re ones who lived here and managed to escape the witchlords. They’re determined to make this land clean again. But more than that, the very reason they’ve come back here is that wicked sorcery is on the rise to the south. Most have lost kin and friends to a sorcerer they call the Lord Regent of Mancibar. They talk of evil dreams, bleeding.…”
Bleeding? Dreams? A thousand questions dribbled away unspoken. Something was definitely not right with me.
“ ’Dero”—my tongue might have been a lump of cheese—“ ’ware the beer.”
“It’s only to make you sleep, Dante. I’d not let them give it till you’d waked from the stoning. ’Tis the only way they’d let you live another hour. You’ve got to trust me, little brother.”
A mighty blackness rose from my gut, cold rage that choked off my breath. “No!”
I reached deep, but the world fell apart.…
IT WAS GOING TO BE a wretched death. Ribs and gut were crushed onto a giant post that rippled and bulged. My face bounced against some contraption of leather, iron, and scratchy wool, my skull ready to disintegrate from the pounding. Without wit enough to conjure a curse, the only word I could squeeze out was, “Stop.”
To my astonishment and gratitude, the rippling, bulging, and bouncing stopped.
“Blessings to all saints, Master!” Footsteps brought busy hands that quickly loosed the straps holding me—holding me to a horse, so returning faculties and the beast’s pungent release told me.
Getting my feet to the ground was another matter entirely. It required moving my head, which set off cannons and earthshakings. Using the beast’s mane and loops on the saddle for handholds, I lowered myself gingerly, as the entire contents of my skin rushed wholesale to my feet. The world spun like burnt stew in an iron pot.
“Devil,” I mumbled, grateful for the beast’s good behavior as I rested my forehead on his neck.
“But this wasn’t my idea, Master! It was your brutish man who threw you over the beast like a sack of washing, rousted me from a deep sleep, and threatened to twist my head from my shoulders did I not take you into the woods in the very middle-night.”
I didn’t bother to correct John Deune. He’d figure out I spoke to the horse, not him.
The angle of the weak sun on my face named the hour early or late. Early more likely, from the feel of the cold air. Feet and hands were numb, and I wished the rest of my body so blessed.
“Have we wine or water? Food?” I’d not eaten anything since somewhere between the bone well and the slimy spring, a full day at least. And I’d not drunk anything since— I rummaged in the murk, trying to understand where we were and why I’d been tied over a horse feeling as if I’d been pummeled with bricks. The stoning…the beer…
“Where is Andero?” I’d kill him.
“Behind us, Master. He persuaded them to let you go free. We’re on the road south again. We’ve a bit of cheese yet, and the last of the olive paste. We could stop for a while and build a fire if you wish, but I assume you’d rather be on our way.”
“When will Andero be here?”
“Let me fetch the food. Two days you’ve slept; you must be ravenous. I filled the water—”
“Two days? And we’ve been traveling all that time?”
“Not speedily. The trees have overgrown this road, so your man bade me lead the horses afoot. And certain I had to sleep last night, being not so strong as the mighty Andero or a powerful mage. But we set out again at first light. The farther we get from Hoven, the better for all.”
Gods, it was dark. Enough memory filtered back to make me wary of using magic. How long did I need to be under that ridiculous ban? Surely two days’ journey…
“So, the Hoveni sent no guard? No watcher?”
It made sense that natives of Kadr would have people trained to detect enchantment, a skill that required little innate power beyond acute senses and meticulous observation. There was no other way they could have reacted so quickly to my attempted seeing.
John knew exactly what I meant.
“Master,” he said, “Goodman Andero instructed me to be very clear about this. You are under his most serious bond not to use any magic until we leave this land. Those people claim they’ll know. I’ve no idea how. Naturally you are wise in these matters as a poor manservant is not.”
The leather loops on Devil’s saddle were empty, leaving a void in my spirit as would a missing limb. “Is that why my staff is not in its place? Am I being protected from temptation?”
“Your stick is stowed quite safely on my own mount. Goodman Andero thought it best our hosts not see it depart with you. I’ll replace it on your beast if you’d like.”
His every comment ended abruptly, without his customary digression. Something was amiss.
“Give me the whole truth, John Deune.”
“I cannot tell you more right now, Master.”
“Cannot or will not?”
“I’m avowed. Goodman Andero swore me on my poor dead chevalier’s honor not to reveal more until we were past the Uravani River that marks the border of Kadr. By this second evening, he estimated.”
Dimios’s ice caves could not be colder than my anger. Fully awake now, I stepped closer, his quivering guiding my steps. “I relieve you of your vow, John Deune. Surely he assumed I would sleep the whole way, for you’ve no possible way to prevent me discovering the truth. When you see him next, you can tell him I beat you, strung you up by your scrawny neck, or embedded my knife in your quivering craw. Whatever you like. I once set a man spinning in the air in a scarlet flask. Where is Andero, and what in the depths of the Souleater’s maw is going on?”
“He has stayed behind.” His croak was scarce audible.
But he stood within my reach. My hand found his bony wrist. “Whatever for? Have they harmed him?”
“I cannot—” Deune tried to twist out of my hold, but he had no strength to match mine. I drew him into a fierce embrace, his neck in the crook of my arm. Then I jerked my grip tighter yet.
His feet came off the ground. His free hand clawed at my arm, at my sides, and flapped at my face. “Master, please. I had nothing to do with it. He promised he would crack my skull like a nut if I failed to do exactly as he said. Take you. Keep walking. Keep silent. Someone would know, he said. Someone would report our progress to him. He swore he’d call down a curse on my…my family.”
“If he’s dead, you’ll join him in Ixtador this day!” I roared and tightened my arm until his choking silenced his protests. “Tell me!”
“Not dead, no, Master,” he rasped when his choking relaxed my hold. “Not at all. Just given his word, his bond. They will let you and me go as long as you work no magic until we cross the Uravani bridge. And—” His reluctance was palpable.
“And?”
“He will stay with them.”
“Stay?”
“It was the only way. You were a dead man. They would listen to no reason, until he offered to stay. But they were desperate, for they’ve only three grown men left and none a smith. They’ll do him no harm, if you honor his pledge.”
“How long? A few days? A month?”
“Five years.”
“Five years! And you left him? You let him do it?” I threw John Deune into the dirt and raised my arms skyward. My hands trembled with pent magic. The earth…root and vine and deep-buried worm…stirred. “You damnable, cowering, ignorant…”
He whimpered.
I wrapped my arms
over my head, trying to crush the frigid rage rising from my gut. I needed to wield wild magic until the everlasting dark blazed like summer sunrise. But I could not. Dared not.
If Andero had given his word and five years for our lives, he’d not thank me for turning back. I believed I could get us both away, despite the protections of Hoven. My brother had no real concept of my skills. But I could not betray this…honor…he so prized. And, as he well knew, Portier was waiting, and the world’s safety, the mystery of Ixtador and starving souls and terrifying dreams. There was simply no time to fight this battle.
With all the strength I could muster, I shoved the cold blackness away. “Not this time,” I spat through gritted teeth. To whom I didn’t know. My arms fell to my sides and my fist uncurled. “Not this time.”
Faithful de Santo would have reached Anne by now, told her of her danger. Between his tale, the journals I’d left at Pradoverde, and her own determination, she would investigate and likely learn more than I had about the Maldivean Seeing Stones and Saints Reborn and what, in the name of all gods, my rending of the Veil had done to the world. The good captain would convince her to be wary and he’d watch out for her. But I feared it would be only for a time. More and more I was convinced that the next great battle must fall to Anne, no matter what I found in Carabangor.
I was broken. More than half-mad. Whatever this cold darkness that lurked inside me, roused by rage and linked to my magic, frightened me more than anything I’d experienced when probing the realms of the dead. Everyone I cared for in the world was at risk, and I, so talented, so powerful, the master mage who raised the dead and opened the rent in the eternal Veil, was helpless to aid any of them.
So I would go on. Find Portier. Set him free.
My breathing calmed. My heart stilled. I extended my hand and waited, until the man at my feet grasped it. I hauled him up and released him. “Pardon my anger. The confusion…I cannot—”
“No matter, Master. You were injured. I hope no harm comes to you or your friend. It’s why I’ve tried to follow his instructions so carefully.” John’s voice was flat. I didn’t trust him any more than before. But we’d seen no more of pursuit, and I had no choices. The old shepherd’s warning about trickster companions would have made me laugh did I remember how.
“You’ve done well. I could not ask for better service.”
“We had best get on with things, then. I’ll fetch something for you to eat.”
“The world is still in danger, John. The chevalier understood that, better than I knew, and he’d be pleased with your service. Get me to Carabangor and I’ll see you rewarded fairly.”
Unlike Andero, John Deune didn’t bristle at the offer. He brought me cheese, olive paste, and a biscuit that could drive nails into oak. Starving, I ate it all. When all was packed away, I hauled myself into the saddle, not daring touch the staff that was replaced reassuringly at my knee.
“Now, I suppose you must lead me out of here.”
“Yes, Master.” Dislike and resentment were thick in the familiar drawl. Sarcasm dripped from the honorific. I’d not sleep easy while we were together. John must want something awfully to put up with this.
The lead rope strung from his saddle to Devil, John Deune clicked his tongue and we moved down the last slopes of Kadr’s ridge toward the Uravani River, the desert, and Carabangor’s mysteries.
I believed I could fall no lower.
Anne
CHAPTER 15
15 ESTAR, EVENING
DEMESNE OF LOUVEL
I rode like the Souleater’s own legion, stopping only to relieve the horse or to sleep. The demesnes of northern Aubine and southern Louvel were as familiar to me as my own hand, so I could hold to private lanes and vineyard tracks that spies were highly unlikely to watch. Yet, I took no chances. The first night I bedded down in the Marques Piafort’s riding school, deserted since the death of his wife and daughter of summer fever. Cranked tight as a crossbow, I couldn’t sleep.
The second night, I huddled in a wayside shrine dedicated to Sante Ianne. Ilario believed Portier was Sante Ianne reborn to serve the world yet again. Outlandish, I would have said three years before. But Portier’s extraordinary history had set me questioning. Even Dante had confessed—albeit grudging—that something extraordinary had occurred with Portier on Mont Voilline, something beyond his own magic and our joined power. Fates keep them both safe.
On the third day, determined to remain unpredictable, I rode west out of my way to the Ley and the small harbor at Villefort. There I paid a bargeman to carry me upriver past Merona and into northern Louvel. I told him I was slipping away from a cruel uncle in order to meet my lover while he was on leave from the Guard Royale. The man reduced the fee and recruited his two grown sons to provide extra hands at the poles.
From our landing at Leynoue, it would be two hard days’ ride to Laurentine and Pradoverde. I would need to take care on my approach. If
de Ferrau’s witness knew I had lived with Dante, then perhaps he…or she…knew where as well. And if Dante wasn’t there, then by the Creator’s mighty hand, I’d follow him to Jarasco and into the wilds of Coverge.
PRADOVERDE
Duskborn plodded along the cart track. Both of us were about done in. Cold, relentless rain had made the two days from the river a misery. The rain had slacked only a half hour past, as the invisible sun nudged the western horizon. But mist had risen in the clefts and hollows, stealing what remained of the light.
I’d been sorely tempted to take a room in Laurentine. But even through cold, sodden weariness, I had judged that a mistake. Beltan de Ferrau of the Jarasco Temple Minor had traveled a very long way to question me, and I had gone to a great deal of trouble to avoid being followed. It would be idiocy to walk into a public house and risk alerting one of his spies. Besides, answers lay only a few kilometres more. I needed to be home.
Duskborn balked and snorted, his ears alert. I soothed and hushed him, urging him off the road and into the lee of a hill.
Dante, friend…I urged the words into the aether. But I sensed him only as before…a distant, stonelike presence, entirely unlike his usual fiery knot. Yet such was the immeasurable nature of the aether that unless he answered me, he could be one metre distant or ten thousand, awake, asleep, or insensible.
No threat materialized. Somehow I coaxed the last of Duskborn’s strength to life, and I soon dismounted at the hornbeam copse that marked the edge of our land.
“Stay here, brave heart,” I whispered for no sensible reason. “I’ll come back for you soon and you’ll spend the night with fine Louvel hay and Ladyslipper and Sonata for company. And Devil, too, if the gods are kind.”
But there was no kindness in earth or Heaven that night. I crossed Pradoverde’s boundary, past the small cairn I’d placed so Dante could find the cart track on his own. A raw screech sirened through the aether.
I kicked over the cairn, silencing the noise only Dante and I could hear. The tripped ward signaled that an intruder had violated Pradoverde’s boundaries and that Dante wasn’t available to cut off the noise.
My feet moved faster up the swale that hid the house from the road. When an orange haze suffused the sky above the grassy slope, I took out running.
“Finn!” I screamed. “Finn, where are you?”
There was no more purpose to stealth. Flames enveloped the kitchen building and the wooden sheds and steps at the rear of the main house. Orange tongues spurted from the front windows of the lower floor. A dark mass exploded from the door and splintered itself. The larger part darted back inside. By the time the dark figure emerged again with another armload, I had reached the pitiful pile of books he had dumped on the damp ground.
“Mistress!” Finn dropped his current load onto the pile. “Stay back!”
“Is anyone else here?”
“None.” He vanished into the smoke curling from the front door.
My cry of caution was swallowed by a thundering burst from the rear of t
he house—Dante’s laboratorium. I ripped off my cloak and the sleeveless gown layered over my riding trousers. Arm shielding mouth and nose, I followed Finn inside.
The heat near sucked the life out of me. Despite frenzied flames dancing in the workroom and licking the walls, thick smoke left me near as blind as Dante. Wood snapped and creaked. The walls were stone, but the upper floor…the roof…We had little time.
Heartsick, I groped through a jumble of furnishings toward the small painting of a lighthouse that had hung in Dante’s rooms at Castelle Escalon. It blackened and curled before I could reach it. So I changed course. Finn knew the only things truly worth saving: Dante’s books or…Oh, gods, his journals. Everything he knew of magic was written down in his awkward angular hand. Losing it all…Angels’ mercy, it would destroy him.
