by Carol Berg
“By the angels.” Rhea raked fingers through her spiky hair. “Where have you gone?”
“Not far, my healer,” said Ilario.
I wanted to slam my head into the wall. Or his.
“Has she killed you?” Rhea tried to retreat from all directions at once. “I never thought—”
“She’s come to my rescue,” said Ilario. “I told you she was extraordinary. But unfortunately she’s the size of a seahorse, and I fear we’ll take nine years to get out of your happy home if you can’t lend me a hand yet again.”
“You are…corporeal?”
“Wretchedly so. Here beside the door.”
As she approached, squinting, I felt him extend his arm. Rhea stared at her own as if it had demonstrated clear signs of leprosy.
“We need to go,” I said, giving her another start. “So tell me truthfully, are you friend or foe?”
“Healer.”
She gathered the sheets and blankets from Ilario’s bed, hefted the bundle on her shoulder, and yanked open the door. “He did vomit earlier this evening,” she said to the remaining guard, who barred her exit with a drawn sword. “Likely from the interrogator’s poison. I need to haul these down to the washhouse. Unless you want to do it.…” She thrust the bundle at the guard.
He retreated to the wall, clearing a nicely wide path for us.
“I’ll be back in an hour with clean linen.”
With Rhea bearing at least half of Ilario’s weight, we proceeded slowly down the passage to the stairs. I seethed at Ilario exposing my secret to the woman, yet I had to confess the wisdom of it. She had done well. And I could not support his shoulders without him stooping. His belly would surely be an agony.
We made it down the back stair and halfway across the lawn before the hospice bells rang in noisy anxiety, summoning all servitors into the Great Hall.
“I have to go,” said Rhea. “Wait in the corner we agreed on. The lord can rest. If I don’t attend this summoning, they’ll know I’ve betrayed them.”
“If they’ve discovered him gone, they already know,” I said. “We can stay hidden, but you…”
“I’m a loyal servitor and will not be suspected. I’ll help them search. Stay here.”
“We need to be away from this place!” I tried not to shout after her.
She stepped back in the deeper shadow of a lilac tree. “He’s going to collapse if you don’t let him rest, damoselle. Their fine little potion will keep him knobbled for at least another hour. And I’ve had no time to write a list of his medicines, and you’ve no idea how they must be given. I’ve not got him this far only to let you kill him. Lord, can you make it a little farther with only the lady?” she said.
“Anne and I shall stagger onward in good order, Captain.” He straightened as if giving a salute. “Neither bailiffs nor dogs nor small ferocious children shall deter us from our objective.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can. Then I’ll take you to a house I know. Safe enough for a few days and I can see to your medicine.” In moments, the pale blur of her bundled laundry vanished into the hospice.
“You trust her,” I said.
“She saved my life, Ani. Ten times over. I smelled the dry fields of Ixtador so often, I came near calling myself one of the Reborn. So, yes, I do. Never doubt she is a most devout adherent of the Temple, but she’s a healer first and has protected me from the worst of their questioning. And she brought you.”
“They want me here where they can watch me. This Tetrarch de Ferrau came to Montclaire asking questions.”
“Ah. The hound of Heaven hunts our friend. That’s good. It means they don’t have him. He and Calvino are likely on their way to find Portier…or those cursed emeralds.…”
Ilario told me everything of their journey from leaving Montclaire to the escape from Jarasco to the fight in the rift where he’d stayed behind. I told him of de Ferrau and the burning of Pradoverde and the letter from Dante’s brother. I didn’t tell him about Calvino de Santo. I couldn’t do that until he had more strength to grieve.
“We’ll find Dante, Ani,” he said, as the Temple bells rang ninth hour. “But I’ve got to say, he frightens me. He is so angry, and great god of Heaven, this magic drives him so hard. I’d swear he traveled in a different world half the time on the road. That night, surrounded by the column of light, so beautiful and terrible, he could have been the Souleater himself. I’d not like to see him with more power than he has already.”
We were silent for a while after that. He laid his arm about my shoulders, the battered prisoner offering me comfort.
“So we wait for Rhea,” I said at last.
“She’s an odd sort, but then, who am I to say? I’ve lived eight-and-twenty years as a mindless idiot, and I’m sitting here invisible with a beautiful, intelligent enchantress who fancies a madman. Give me a few days in her care, away from the tetrarch’s potions, and we’ll ride for Carabangor.”
Dante
CHAPTER 18
23 ESTAR, EVENING
AROTHI DESERT
By the time John Deune led me across the ancient stone bridge that spanned the river Uravani, we had shed our cloaks and wool shirts. The warm, dust-laden air, the sweet rot of an old riverbed, and the snappish energies of the aether signaled we had truly traveled to a different place. And there was more.…
Once we reached the Arothi side, I called John Deune to halt. “Tell me of the bridge.”
The flood of enchantment flowing over and through me spoke of something massive and very old.
“It’s just a bridge. Looks odd to me. The river’s naught but a muddy trickle that a man might ford without so much as a plank to walk across. But the span is as wide as a boulevard and built like a fortress with gate towers on the ends, as if someone might actually want to conquer a country that looks as lively as a rat with a broken neck.”
“Are there markings on it? Carvings?” Conquering legions had traversed this bridge since the days before writing. I’d swear I could hear the surging power of the great river and feel the ground shiver with the tramp of their feet.
“Don’t see any. No carvings at all save the Cult statues on each end. Oughtn’t we be moving?”
“Cult statues?”
“There’s the statues atop the gate towers.” John sighed and spoke louder and slower, as if I were an idiot child. “It’s the Righteous Defender and the Daemon of the Dead as you might see at any Cult shrine, though you’ll not see them so large as these. These are quite shabby, though, noses and ears ground away…the Daemon’s claw broken off, the Defender’s sword missing.”
Ghost prickles raised the hairs on arms and neck. “I thought the tales of the Righteous Defender were just Temple stories, not particular to the Cult of the Reborn.” Adept Denys had also called the Defender’s opponent the Daemon of the Dead. “You must know a great deal about Cult legends, serving Lord Ilario so many years.”
“I’m not a Cultist myself, but, as you say, my lord was…devoted.” John Deune’s servile superiority set my teeth grinding. “The Temple believes the Righteous Defender of the Gates of Heaven to be an angel. The Cult says he will be one of their Saints Reborn.”
“Naturally they would. And what of this daemon?”
“The Souleater’s Chosen, the strongest of his champions. In the last battle of the War for Heaven, they say the Daemon will battle the Defender before Heaven’s Gates, trying to take the unworthy where they don’t belong.”
Free of Andero’s bond, I touched my copper bracelet and looked backward. A small advantage to me, that I could not see the flaws John Deune described. Instead, through the charcoal veil of blindness, I saw the figures as they were meant to be seen, towering, fearsome shapes silhouetted against the clear gray sky, no shoddy details to reduce the majesty of their grappling. For no reason at all, my breath came short and my throat swelled to choking.
“So we go on, Master?”
Unable to speak and unable to explain why, I jerked m
y head.
Throughout that day, we traveled the ghost road away from Kadr and into the hot, dry wastelands of Aroth. The sun hammered and bent me as if I lay on my father’s forge. Again I fell into waking dreams: emerald walls and gaping spectres, a flashing sword and a daemon hand…scarred and clawed. Once I glimpsed the fair young man, his sword tucked under his shifting coat. He tossed his long gold and gray hair over his shoulder. When his eyes met mine, his fair face lit in greeting, he pressed a long finger to his mouth as if to hush my fears. I jolted awake, chilled to the marrow.
Three times on that day, cold shudders prompted me to ask if we rode through some gully or streambed where fog lingered. Each time John Deune denied it. The third time, his irritation burst its bounds. “There’s naught but trampled ground as far as I can see. Why would I lie about it? Sometimes we pass what looks like long furrows and holes like pockmarks on the land. There’s a few broke-down wagons far from the road. Naught but brush growing. So is this where you’re meant to go or not? I’m just following your man’s orders as you said.”
“Yes, I’m sure this is right.” We were close.
Indeed the land of Aroth seemed bound by enchantment—every noise too loud or too soft, the very earth beneath my feet unsettled. The world felt thin, day and night and season leaking into one another. In one hour the desert heat seemed like to bake me. In another, the dry chill set my bones shivering.
I swallowed my curses lest John abandon me in the wastes. I used no magic. Surely I would need all the power I could muster for this meeting.
I COULD HAVE NAMED THE moment when Carabangor came into view, for a shadow fell over my spirit that no tree or cloud could explain. As a dawn wind blew across the desert, my companion drew us to a halt and confirmed the appearance of broken towers on the horizon.
“I didn’t intend to bring you here, John Deune,” I said. “But I thank you.”
“I’m sworn to serve you, noble master, though I know I’m weak and ignorant beside Goodman Andero.” Weak, yes, though he held himself wiser. Likely he was.
The wind gusted and moaned about the piled stones and fallen timbers of an abandoned caravanserai. The horses were skitterish, so we tethered them in the shelter of a spindly locust tree and walked into Carabangor.
It was as if I had been journeying forever away from the life I knew and into the realm of haunts. Ancient voices and newer ones twined in the chaotic aether…layer upon layer of birth and death, affection, jealousy, murder, torment. City upon city had stood in this place.
Once through the gates, I paused, gripped my staff with both hands, and opened my true hearing. And she was there. Weeping, pleading with me to come and deliver her from her prison among the dead of Carabangor.
“There it is, Master, a ruin with six eagle statues in front of it.” John Deune’s whisper blared like a herald’s trump. His hand on my arm felt like ground glass in a wound.
“Wait with the horses, John. If I’ve not returned by dusk, run to Andero. He’ll see you safe until you can get home. Your oath to Lord Ilario is discharged.”
Perhaps he obeyed. Perhaps he didn’t. I moved forward as a sleepwalker might, drawn by the fascination of my waking dream. My feet were sure, unfazed by swirling sand that scoured the rubble as if trying to rid the desert of this blighted ruin.
The temple interior was cool and moist, just as de Cuvier had described it. The wind darted ahead of me down the winding staircase, and the fog muffled my steps as I descended into the great cavern. Imagination gazed upon the landscape of my dreams—the milky lake, the boat, and in the center of all, the phantom, the woman of dreams, her silken hair floating in the fog so you could not tell where one ended and the other began. I did not doubt the scene existed in truth just as I viewed it in memory.
“Help me!” The plea floated through the damp air. The glancing heat on my cheeks, on my shirt, on my arms, would be beams of green fire from the Stone resting on her palm.
Mind clung to the memory as my body found its way to the shore.
“Who are you?” My graveled voice bounced from the cavern walls.
“Oh, blessed stranger! I beg thee save me from this everlasting torment. I can pay. This jewel shall bring thee the supreme amongst all thy desires.”
What game did she play, pretending not to know me?
“Your freedom will bring other things, too, will it not?” I said. “Things no one sensible would desire. Speak to me, phantom. Tell me why you’ve brought me here.”
“I send the dreams in hopes of freedom, and I offer fair exchange. Why wouldst thou not wish passion’s sorcery?” Earnest inquiry, as if she didn’t know the truth of her green glass. “Hast thou no love? No art? No kingdom that drives you? I can attest to the Stone’s beauty and worth.”
“Desire for answers drives me. But you know that already.”
Stupid to get into word twisting with an enchantress. I had to be careful. My purpose was Portier and the world’s safety. I had to understand this woman’s designs and the magnitude of power she could command to execute them. And then there was Jacard.…
“Where is your partner?”
“I have no partner. The other is a jealous fiend who tries to confuse and twist my sendings. I was always to stand first. I serve my beloved lord and no other, though he is so long delayed. Did the priests answer my pleas, I would never offer the Stone to strangers.”
A jealous fiend…a beloved lord…priests…“But where are these others?”
“Set me free, gentle stranger. Take my gift and together we shall discover the answers you seek and I cannot give, prisoned as I am. Thou’rt comely, as is my lord, and I’ll serve thee well.”
Diving deep into the aether, I knelt and touched the mold-slimed paving, applying my best skills to decipher the magic. To little avail. The cavern in which I stood was real enough, but everything in it was so tangled in spells that it was impossible to judge truth from illusion. As if I were brushing sand from a buried pot, I cleared away the murk of emotion and history. The remaining spellwork was not so much a structure as a snarl of a thousand glassy threads, each pulsing with power, of such complexity it would take me days to pattern it. And at the heart of all was…nothing. A quiet emptiness. Nothing I could identify as the green glass in her hand.
Impossible, unless all had been one grand illusion. Gods, what I would give for one hour of sight.
“So long I’ve waited.” Her voice wrenched the soul for pity. But I’d no intention of setting her free.
“Tell me who you are and how you came to be here,” I said.
“I am Nessia, Keeper of Rhymus. To hold the Stone of Passion in time of trial has been my duty, ordained from birth, for I am of the clan of Tareo. When the barbarians came, the priests promised that my beloved lord would soon come for his Stone and deliver me. But I fear I’m forgotten. Have the barbarians won, great lord? Art thou one of them? Thy garments are strange, but thy shining neck collar speaks of your worth.…”
Her presence was soft as spring grass, as supple as willow, her call filled with desperate hope. Had I not unmasked her in the dream, heard her malevolent laughter, and smelled my father’s charred flesh, I would have been at her side already.
“Please speak, lord. Is it some sin of mine keeps me here? I’ve offered the Stone freely, but all were afraid.”
“You spoke in my father’s dreams. Told him to forge a chain to bind me. He died in agony for heeding your command. You said you intend to bury a holy man alive.”
“Nay! I would never—either one! I’m but my lord’s servant, innocent of any crime save impatience. ’Tis Rhymus causes the seeing. I but touch its squaring facet, speak my need, and invoke the spell of dreams. To shape the dream is beyond anyone’s skill save the Stone’s rightful wielder, the priests who teach us, or the magic of the Stone itself.”
Old anger and frustration gnawed at my gut. I was getting nowhere, shouting across the lake, incapable of reading her face. I needed to examine her prize, touch i
t, and judge its powers or whether it was evil in itself. I trained all my perception on reality. The copper bracelet was cold to the touch. Oraste.
Reality, imagining, and dream were inseparable in Carabangor. Though blurred and dim, all appeared as in my memory of de Cuvier’s dream: the broken roof, the lake, the boat, the woman’s slender shape on the distant islet. The boat was sturdy and felt as if new built that day. No smell of rot, no splinter marred the smooth finish of the oars.
Anne’s pendant and Portier’s ring went into my pocket. I bound my useless hand to the oar with their silver chain, a test of truth. I’d never had to do that in the dream.
I let the seeing spell lapse, lest it sap my power. The woman’s weeping was a beacon more precise than any hilltop lighthouse. No sound intruded on my passage save the dip of oars, the soft echoes of her weeping, and the flutter of birds as they passed through the broken roof to the lost sky.
