It was playing with her like a cat, she realized, as it morphed into a leather-and-furred dragon, deformed and wingless. But cats sometimes were careless enough to kill their prey before they intended to. Somehow, she had to get this one to do that. The Basilisk was counting on her to react to the Hound like any Rider, with fear and loathing. But she wasn’t any other Rider. Either the Basilisk had forgotten that she had killed a Hound in the Shadowlands, or he had never been told. Cassandra strongly suspected it was the latter.
Could that be her approach? She swallowed and tasted blood, spat it out on the floor. Could she taunt it with the death of its pack mate? It had worked with the Basilisk, and the Basilisk, she now knew, was more than half Hound. Could she get this one angry enough, or careless enough, to kill her?
“What were you to start with?” She cleared her throat and spat out another gob of blood. “Chimera? Griffin? Just some big kitty cat, huh?”
This time, when it batted at her, she clutched at the limb—she couldn’t be sure whether it was arm or leg. The scales under her hands morphed to feathers, to skin, to soft wet flesh, to rough fur and back to scales again. She clung, pain numbing her right hand, trying to bring her teeth to bear, until the Hound shook her free by the simple expedient of banging her against the wall until her grip loosened and she let go. She looked up right away, tossing her head to clear her hair from her eyes, even though it set her head to clanging like a bell.
“What’s the matter? Can’t keep your shape?” It circled her more warily now, pupilless eyes blinking, spiked tail lashing like a big cat’s. “I’ve killed one of you already,” she said. “Maybe you knew him? Looked like he might have had some cat in him. Or her.”
The Hound snarled and sprang for her, wings sprouting from its leathery back, scales changing to feathers even as it hovered over her, claws snatching. Cassandra picked up a chair, forcing her numb right hand to close over a leg, and heaved it at the distortion hovering, wings beating, above her. The momentum of throwing the chair unbalanced her, and as she was teetering, the Hound landed on her shoulders and knocked her to the floor. Again her gra’if shirt hardened, saving her from having the air knocked out of her. She twisted, feeling the Hound’s shardlike talons dragging through the skin of her arms, and closed her hands on its forelimbs, digging through the feathery layer to touch the skin beneath. It was not, as she somehow expected, burning hot, but cold, clammy, as if the Hound were injured or dying. Cassandra felt heat rising in her blood to answer it. She felt the heat pouring from her into the Hound.
No, she thought.
His Signed Room was dark and quiet, even the fire in the hearth had gone out, ashes cold now and half-burned bits of kindling spread across the singed floor. The first thing the Basilisk saw, when his eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room, was broken furniture. He drew his brows down. His Guidebeast set was scattered over the floor and several of the pieces were crushed and broken. It was not until he had peered around the room twice that he saw the body of Sword of Truth lying in a heap by the far wall, what he had taken for shafts of light her gra’if mail shining bright as flame through the tears in her dress. The Basilisk motioned with his hand, halting the guards at the door. His hands shook and he told himself it was rage. If the Hound had killed her, after being given strict instructions that Sword of Truth was not to be seriously harmed . . . He forced himself to breathe deeply. Her words had troubled him, but only for a moment. What she suggested was not possible. Riders did not become Hounds. The Hunt was the Hunt, and always had been, Cycle through Cycle. She had wanted to strike at him, that was all. To destroy his confidence. But she had chosen her weapon badly, her accusation too wild to be believed—though not too wild to punish. He strode forward, avoiding the broken furniture and crumpled rugs, and mindful of the game pieces still whole on the floor. His hand went once more to the Horn he wore around his neck. If she were dead . . .
But she was not dead. And neither was the naked Rider asleep in her arms.
“Well,” the Basilisk said, his voice a bare whisper. “Perhaps I will keep her after all.”
He swung around and went back to the waiting guards.
“Bring them both.”
Dawn had the clarity that only comes on a cold fall day. Max’s breath fogged in the early light. The air actually seemed colder, now that the sun was up, than it had the night before. Blood on the Snow and Lightborn flanked him. Behind them stood the Ogre Thunder Under the Mountain her green-gray bulk overshadowing the Natural Trere’if who seemed almost delicate beside her. Beyond them was a semicircle of Wild Riders on their Cloud Horses, all that were left after Windwatcher had taken the others to the Portals.
“If this turns out badly,” Max said, “I’d like to say I’m sorry now.”
“Good to hear you are so confident,” Lightborn said. Blood merely shook his head, smiling.
Max grinned back. Here we go, he thought, as—SLAM!
The Basilisk had brought with him a full troop of mounted soldiers, all conspicuous in their soft purple clothing. One or two of the host’s Cloud Horses tossed their heads as their Riders reacted to the presence of the Ogre and the Wood. It was clear from this, and from the muttering that passed through the ranks like a breeze and was almost instantly checked, that most of them had not been told who and what they were going to meet. The Basilisk Prince himself was flanked by two Starward Riders, standing one at each of his stirrups, looking like pale flames in the dawn’s light. One of them was Walks Under the Moon, and the other—Max let out the breath he had been holding. The other was Cassandra.
Her face was dirty, bruised, and her gra’if mail shirt gleamed through tears in her clothing. There were darkmetal cuffs around her wrists, joined with a short chain. Max felt a flood of heat as the anger and fear he’d carefully suppressed surged to the surface. In that moment he wanted nothing more than to kill the Basilisk Prince with his own hands for no other reason than that the stone-sucking Basilisk had dared to touch her.
But he pushed the fires of his anger back, forcing himself to be calm, as calm as she appeared to be, glowing in the cloudy day like torchlight, her pale skin a golden cream, her gray eyes almost as brightly silver as her gra’if. The sight of her took Max back to the night Cassandra had killed the Hound, when she’d made the streetlight pale by comparison. There was a young Moonward Rider on her left, his purple cotte and leggings badly fitted, looking around him with small jerks of his head, holding her tightly by the forearm, not like a captor, but like a small boy who holds to his mother in an unfamiliar place. When Max caught her eye, Cassandra smiled and gave him a “thumbs up” sign with her left hand. Max bit the inside of his lip to keep his face straight, blinking furiously against the tears that threatened his eyes. He knew that look. I’m ready, the look said, let’s go. Didn’t matter that he’d had no chance to explain his plan to her, she knew he had one, and she was ready to back him up. She was ready.
Max hoped she didn’t remember that time in Florence.
The Basilisk urged his horse forward a pace, motioning to Cassandra.
“I have brought you Sword of Truth,” the Basilisk said, his voice smooth and cool.
Max took a step toward her before he could stop himself.
“Not so quickly, Dawntreader. Where are the Talismans?”
“I have taken the precaution,” Max said with a slight bow, “of Moving them to the Stone.” He indicated the men standing behind the Basilisk. “It seemed like a prudent course.”
The Basilisk inclined his own head, his gaze moving across the Wild Riders assembled behind Max. “Suppose I take you now?”
Max shrugged. “You cannot force me to Move you to the Stone,” he said.
“I still have Sword of Truth,” the Basilisk said, eyes narrowing.
Max held up his hand, index finger extended, as both Lightborn and Blood in the Snow stepped forward.
“How many times can you play the same card?” he said to the Basilisk. “I would have no reason to
take you to the Talismans if Sword of Truth is dead.”
Cassandra still smiling, eyes bright, made a noise as if she might laugh.
“Then I am ready,” the Basilisk said, with a mocking bow.
“There must be witnesses,” Max said.
“My guard can be our witness.”
Max shook his head. “No more than a score can go, and afoot. Custom requires that the Stone’s proclamation be witnessed by representatives of all the People.”
The Basilisk looked over his shoulder at where Moon still stood, near the soldiers. She inclined her head once.
“So the Songs tell us,” she said. “The High Prince is Prince for all the People, as the Talismans are for all the People.”
“Thunder Under the Mountain will witness for all Solitaries, Trere’if for all Naturals,” said Max. “Blood on the Snow will witness for the Wild Riders, and Lightborn for all the Riders you have given your word to leave safe. Sword of Truth I will have as well.”
The Basilisk looked around him, quickly calculating. “Half a score of my men will go with us.”
Max bowed. “Choose them.”
Moon and Cassandra stepped forward immediately and waited to one side while the Basilisk’s guards divided themselves into two groups, the smaller of which dismounted and joined Cassandra and Moon. A commotion broke out when two men from the mounted group that would be left behind tried to separate the young Moonward Rider from Cassandra. He was not armed, but he clung to her with one hand as he snarled and struck out with the other. Even their Horses were reluctant to approach him, and the guards backed away, glancing uncomfortably at one another. The mounted commander approached the Basilisk and addressed him quietly. The Basilisk, his eyes never moving from where Max stood, shrugged, and smiled.
“Very well, let him come.” Max didn’t understand the Basilisk’s twisted smile. “Let all of my People be represented.”
Max waited until those chosen to go were ready, standing in a rough circle in the middle of the Wild Riders’ camp. He managed to insinuate himself so that he stood between Lightborn and Cassandra. She had the unknown Moonward Rider to her left. On the other side of Lightborn was the Ogre. If he didn’t mind leaving everyone else to die, Max thought, he could take Cassandra now and go.
“Join hands,” Max said, taking Cassandra’s warm hand in his own and returning her squeeze. He had an instant’s wild desire to laugh as he looked around the circle. Ogre and Wood, Wild Riders and the Basilisk. They could be the guests at some expedient but distasteful political marriage, forced by custom and against their inclinations to take part in a round dance.
He looked at Cassandra again, and her smile caught the breath in his throat.
“I will take you to the Stone,” he said.
Chapter Twenty
THE STONE WAS A PINNACLE of rock, thrusting upward through banks of bright cloud hang-ing miles below its edge, as solid looking as any alpine meadow. The uneven platform of its summit was no more than fifty meters square, limestone gray, without grass or bush or tree. Rough and irregular, it looked like a block of clay squared off by a giant child. Three of the edges dropped off sharply into the bottomless gorge, and even the fourth side was only slightly rounded over. The sky was a cool azure, clear and bright, the light constant, casting no shadows. There was nothing else to see.
“It does not sound.” The voice was Trere’if’s, branches groaning. “No matter what you may do from this moment forward, Dreamer of Time, we are all witness to it. Ma’at does not sound. The Stone of Virtue rejects you. You are not the High Prince.”
No, Max realized, and Lightborn isn’t either. He’d told himself all along, since the idea had first come to him, that it was only a chance, one in a million. But his hopes had been higher than he’d known. Only the rush of standing on the Stone itself for the second time this morning saved him from being crushed with disappointment.
It was impossible to remember, between visits, what it was like to stand here, with the rest of the Talismans, and be whole and complete. Not just the mouth that spoke, but all of the body together. This was what no one knew, that there were five Talismans, not four. The Stone, the Spear, the Sword, the Cauldron, and the Guardian. He could feel the blood hammering through his veins, the air sliding through his lungs. He could sense every rock, every crevice; he knew without looking that the Sword, Spear, and Cauldron were behind him on the fold of rock that formed the table waiting always for them here, on Ma’at.
Where they would wait forever, now that there was no High Prince. Now that the Cycles were at an end.
“How can it sound? I have not yet seen it. Bring it forth.” The Basilisk’s musical voice brought Max’s attention sharply back to the matter at hand. The Cycle wasn’t over yet.
“This is the Stone,” Max said, using his most condescending smile. “We stand upon it.”
The Riders behind the Basilisk murmured uneasily.
The Basilisk spun, jerking his head back and forth, clearly wishing to deny it. Let him try, thought Max. This was a place like no other, and it was showing its effects on all of them. Even one or two of the Riders among the Basilisk’s men were relaxing, soaking in the extraordinary silence. Trere’if looked as though he might put down roots, and the Ogre had hunkered down, rubbing the Stone’s surface with the palms of her rough hands. The young, unknown Moonward Rider had finally let go of Cassandra’s arm and was looking around him, an expression of peace relaxing his face.
“You are here, the Talismans are here, the Guardian is here, and the Stone does not sound,” Blood said, his rough silk voice ringing in the still air. “You are not the Prince.” Another stir of movement ran through the Basilisk’s men and one or two eyed the edge of the Stone and shifted closer to their fellows.
Max saw a look of puzzled indecision pass across the Basilisk’s face. With nothing to lose, he stepped toward the Rider who had been his friend, almost his fara’ip, holding out his hands.
“Dreamer, you see the truth now. Let the past go.”
Moon pushed forward and grabbed the Basilisk’s arm in both hands, clinging when he tried to shake her off. Her eyes looked indigo dark in her pale face. Max could swear she was sweating.
“Do not listen to him,” she said, tense as a cat. “He is trying to trick you, son-of-Solitaries as he is. This is not the Stone.”
The Basilisk relaxed, the look Max had seen fading, to be replaced by another, the eyes overly bright now, the smile strained and stiff.
He will deny it, Max thought unbelieving, he’s going to deny it after all.
“Of course,” the Basilisk said, his head nodding in little jerks as if in answer to Max’s thought. He flung Moon off and turned toward the rock where the Talismans sat.
“. . . . . . . . . . .” the Basilisk said.
Max put his hands up to his head. What—? He had heard that. Almost. A musical whisper tickling inside his head. The Basilisk went on speaking. Max backed away until he bumped into Blood on the Snow behind him. He was aware that Cassandra was calling out to him, that she was trying to reach him, her chained hands stretched out toward him, but that two of the Basilisk’s men had her by the arms and were pulling her away. The young Moonward Rider had fallen to his knees, and was covering his face with his hands. Trere’if stood suddenly still, his mouth open in a soundless scream, his head thrown back, his arms thrusting into the sky and spreading into leafed branches, his legs twining together, the tendrils of his toes thickening as they rooted, cracking and shivering the rock as the Natural took on his true form.
The Basilisk went on speaking.
Max’s knees gave way, and he felt Blood’s hands and Lightborn’s, lowering him until he was kneeling, leaning against the Table of the Talismans, head pillowed on his arms. As his eyes closed, Max saw Blood draw his gra’if sword, but he did not hear the sound of the metal clearing the sheath.
The Basilisk went on speaking.
The Chant of Binding, Max thought, ice forming in his veins,
as the Basilisk’s voice, perfectly audible now, indeed the only sound he could hear, rang through his head, dancing through his thoughts like a black Sprite, shutting doors and fixing chains, bolts and locks as it went. He shook his head, but couldn’t clear out the sound. And now he couldn’t open his eyes again. He felt himself dissolving as the Basilisk’s voice washed through his mind, felt his bond with the Talismans strengthen and harden, felt the chains moving to circle them all. Oh, god. His thought was a scream, despair rising like the head of a snake to strike at him. The Chant of Binding . I should have killed him right away . . . I didn’t think it would work so fast . . .
Cassandra hardly felt the hands of the Riders holding her, bruising her arms as she struggled forward against them. All she saw was Max sagging against the rock that held the Talismans, changed and lambent now in this extraordinary light. Was Max losing color? Did he glow with an echo of their luminescence? What was it she’d been thinking earlier about plans going wrong?
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