Willon licked the blood off his lip. “Stupid Traveler bitch,” he said, spittle flying from his mouth. “Shut up. Just shut up. If you would be quiet, it would all be arranged. Your family would be safe. Why won’t you just shut up?”
“Because you aren’t worth listening to?” said Phoran laconically, and much too closely. She couldn’t take her eyes off Willon to look, but he’d left his safe place near the buildings—and if he’d left, surely Toarsen and Kissel were not too far behind. She should have gotten his promise rather than let Phoran distract her.
“You couldn’t even keep Rinnie and me when you had us. What kind of wizard can’t hold on to a child and a has-been drunkard like me?” Phoran asked.
If Seraph hadn’t had her shielding ready, Phoran might not have lived to regret those words. The magic Willon threw at the Emperor was strong, and Seraph felt her hastily redirected shields begin to give beneath it. Then Hennea’s magic aided hers and turned Willon’s attack aside.
“Now, Tier,” Seraph heard Hennea say.
“Lynwythe,” Tier said.
“Lynwythe,” he said, and hoped something would happen.
It wasn’t at all what he expected. As soon as the words left his lips, Rinnie’s and Hennea’s hands disappeared, as did Willon. The familiar weight of his lute was gone as well. Tier was alone.
He stood in a long, wide room with walls, ceiling, and floor all of dove grey and strangely featureless, as if someone merely thought about a room, rather than a real room.
Instinct made him want to return to his family—but Hennea and Hinnum had both thought his speaking of that name was the only possible way to defeat the Shadowed. He disciplined himself, looked around, and began walking.
His sturdy boots left marks on the featureless floor: not quite footprints, just a marring of the surface where the hard edge of his heels touched down. For a moment he felt ashamed, embarrassed that he, a farmer, should dare tread such hallowed halls at all, let alone mar the floors.
He stopped and took a deep breath. “I do not belong here,” he said in a more pleasant tone than he felt like using. “I know it, as do you. However I doubt a few marks on the floor are going to bother you much. I am a Bard, sir. I know how to influence people—and I know when someone tries to influence me. I’ll thank you to stop.”
No one replied, but the feeling that he ought to be cringing and scuttling forward on hands and knees because of his great inadequacies left. Conscious of the danger his family was in, he walked quickly forward. Though there was nothing in the room that he could see, he felt this was the direction he must walk in.
“Why did you call My name, Bard?” The voice was deep and rich.
Tier stopped walking and turned to face the god who’d appeared next to him without a sound or any warning, just his words in a rich bass that part of Tier could not help but want to hear in song, just once.
There was not much else impressive about him. He appeared to be a man a little shorter than average and slight of build. His hair and eyes were as dark as Tier’s own.
“Why do you hesitate, Bard?” He said with a small smile that sent chills down Tier’s spine. This was not the Weaver. “Do you seek to form lies that might please Me?”
“No,” answered Tier truthfully. “It just occurred to me that I’m not certain what the real truth is. The simple answer is that we only had the one name.”
“So you called upon Me because you could not call upon My brother? Is there another answer?”
Tier decided to trust his instincts. “I think the barrier the Weaver created limits His ability to work in this world. I think He has interfered all that He can already. If we’d had both names, we would have called upon the Weaver.” He took a deep breath. “And we would have failed. The Weaver can do no more to help us.”
The Stalker raised his hands. “And you think that I will? Now when My servant, My slave has loosened the bonds that hold Me? He will not have to take many more Orders before I am able to do whatever pleases Me.”
“He is not Your servant, nor Your slave,” said Tier. “He is a thief who snuck into Your prison and stole Your power without so much as a by-your-leave.”
“Even as you have called My Name, Bard, so I must answer like a dog answers the call of his master.” The words were bitter and angry, but neither emotion was reflected in the Stalker’s face or voice.
“While we speak my family faces the Shadowed on their own,” said Tier, then sucked in a breath. You can do better than this, he thought. “I can only apologize for my discourtesy. Offending You is the last thing I wish to do. We need Your help to defeat the Shadowed.”
“Indeed,” said the god. “What will you give me for this help? Who will you sacrifice? Your wife? One of your children? The Emperor, perhaps?”
“I will not,” Tier said, his blood turning to ice in his veins. “But I will give you myself.”
“Will you?” said the god, his voice hushed. He reached up to cup Tier’s chin in his hands.
Pain snaked down Tier’s spine, and he heard himself cry out. Nothing, not even Telleridge’s hammer slamming down on his knees, hurt so badly. He fell to the ground, and the god knelt with him, keeping that gentle touch that rent and tore without a physical wound.
“Pull away, Bard,” said the Stalker. “Pull away, and the pain will stop.”
Tier closed his eyes against the voice, pull away and lose any chance for victory. He could not, would not do it.
In the end the god released His hold and stood. “If I could do something about the thieves who take My power without asking, I would have long ago. There is nothing I can do.”
“I am a Bard,” whispered Tier, curled in a sweating ball on the clean, cold floor. “I can tell when You lie.”
For the first time, Tier saw honest emotion on the face of the Stalker: anger. “You overstep yourself, Bard. I am the Lord of Death and you are in My realm.”
“Binding the Orders to the gems hasn’t worked to loosen the veil that keeps you imprisoned,” said Tier a little desperately. It sounded like truth to him, and he found the reasons why. “I think that if they had loosened, You would already have destroyed Willon yourself. Hinnum told me that You are not evil. Surely what the Shadowed does with Your power offends You.”
From somewhere he found the strength to sit up, though his muscles were still twitching, waiting for more pain.
“If your wife destroys the gems without freeing the Orders, it will loosen the barrier,” said the Stalker.
“Willon wants my wife to clean the spirit from the gems so that he can use them all,” Tier told him. “He knows about the Guardian Order. If my wife does not show him, he will learn how to do it eventually. He has all the time in the world, because death has no hold on him. Eventually he will take all the gems and eat their power—the power that belongs to You and to the Weaver. Then he will destroy You both.”
He’d read Willon’s intention when he first realized what it meant that Willon was not looking for six spirit-cleaned gems, but all of the gems clean.
The Stalker turned away, jerking his eyes from Tier’s as if Tier had some sort of hold on him.
“You told him how to bind the Orders to the gems,” Tier said. He wasn’t certain he could stand, so he didn’t. “If You had not done that, the Travelers could have dealt with him eventually. That is the task they bear for their imperfect sacrifice. Their greed for knowledge, for the libraries and Hinnum’s mermori left the possibility open for a Shadowed to exist. It is a task they have carried out since the fall of Colossae. But there are few Travelers left now, thanks to Willon. If You had not told him how to bind the Orders, he would be no threat to You now.”
“You said it yourself, Bard,” the Stalker said bitterly, “death has no hold over him. I can do nothing to him so long as he holds My power.”
“So what can I do to him?” asked Tier. “How do we stop him for You?”
The god sighed. “I can help.” He said. “I will sing with you
and we will withhold my power from Willon for a time. You have proved to me that you can withstand the pain of My song inside you. While we hold the power back, Willon must be killed.”
“Lehr?” asked Tier.
“Only the war god can kill an immortal,” said the Stalker regretfully. “There will be sacrifices before the Shadowed is dead, Tier.”
“The Guardian believes that if he kills someone, it will destroy Jes,” said Tier.
“The Guardian is right,” agreed the Stalker. “Hennea is as much My child as she is My brother’s or Jes is yours. I would not cause her more pain if I could help it.”
“Lynwythe,” Tier heard himself finish the word and realized that the entire episode had taken no time at all.
Everyone paused, waiting for something to happen. Tier released Rinnie’s hand, then Hennea’s. He pulled the lute, which was once more on his back, over his shoulder and began to pick a melody.
The Stalker had told him the song didn’t matter, but Tier picked a soldier’s song, one of those pieces with eight lines of chorus for every two lines of verse, and the number of verses was limited only by his memory for risqué puns. He could sing it from now until sundown.
He bent his head to tune a string, and said, very softly. “Jes, when I start the second chorus, the Guardian will be able to kill Willon.”
“It didn’t work,” said Willon. “The Stalker didn’t answer you.”
“Did you think He would?” asked Tier. Of course Willon would know the god’s real name. He would have to have both names if he were going to steal their power. “Why would He answer me?”
“I can do it,” said Lehr, who had also heard Tier’s words.
Tier shook his head and began singing.
“What are you doing?” asked Willon, but Tier could tell that Seraph wanted to ask the same thing.
He could answer neither one of them because the god’s power burned through his throat like fire. He understood why the Stalker had tested him with pain because this song hurt, the Stalker’s power no lighter for him to bear than it was for the Shadowed—and Tier would take no other person’s life to make it easier.
“What are you doing?” asked Willon again, and this time he was angry, certain Tier was making fun of him with his choice of song—a silly thing about a soldier who goes out into a strange village looking for a woman to lie with.
“He is a Bard,” said Seraph suddenly. “Music is his gift, Willon.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Tier saw Jes release his hold on Hennea, then vanish from sight.
Willon had been watching, too.
“Two hundred and twelve years,” said Willon, “and I never knew that there was a sixth Order. I thought Volis was talking about the Stalker when he called him the Eagle. If it hadn’t been for Ielian, I never would have known that I was missing one. Where did he go?”
“He’s still here,” said Seraph. “Can’t you feel the ice of his breath on the back of your neck?”
Bless her, thought Tier, as he forced his pain-laden finger to exert the proper pressure on the neck of his lute. She didn’t know what he was doing, but she knew he was doing something. The longer she kept Willon distracted the better.
“I told you to shut up, woman,” said Willon in a vicious tone that broke through his merchant-smooth manner and rang true as a bell to a Bard’s senses. He gestured at Seraph.
Nothing happened. Tier was no mage, but he had a Rederni’s keen sense where magic was concerned, and he felt nothing at all.
“Bitch!” snarled Willon, obviously placing the blame for his failure upon Seraph. He sucked in a breath and pulled the merchant’s mask back over his face. “But I am more than just the Stalker’s avatar. I am a wizard who bears the Raven’s Order.”
He ripped open his tunic neck and Tier saw that he wore a necklet covered with gems. Hennea made a small sound, so Tier could only suppose that they were all Ordered.
“I can’t,” the Guardian said into Papa’s ear. “I can’t risk Jes.” Jes sensed the Guardian’s cold terror before it was buried beneath the avalanche of the Guardian’s protective rage. A Guardian defended those he considered his—and Jes belonged to him.
“Only you can do it,” said Papa in a quick whisper between verses. “The Stalker said only the Guardian can kill him.”
Jes understood than. Somehow the god his father had called upon had given Papa’s music the power to hinder the Shadowed. But the power came at a terrible cost, the shimmering waves of agony that rolled over Jes were only a taste of what his father felt.
The Guardian couldn’t perceive Tier’s suffering as Jes did, but he could see the sweat that dampened their father’s tunic and the lines of pain around his mouth. And all of Papa’s hurt was to make a way for them to kill the Shadowed.
We can’t let him suffer for nothing, Jes told the Guardian. We have to kill the Shadowed while we can. It doesn’t matter if I die as long as we take the Shadowed with us.
Jes was helpless, held prisoner by the Guardian’s unwillingness to put Jes at risk.
Look, Jes told him in mounting frustration, look at Papa’s pain.
“We are Ravens,” his mother was telling Willon, her voice laden with disdain as she nodded toward the Ordered gems the Shadowed wore. “You are nothing.”
She was trying to keep the Shadowed’s attention on her, to let Jes do what Papa had asked. She did it with the weapon best suited to the task—her tongue.
“You are a solsenti,” she told the Shadowed in the voice Papa always said could freeze a man to death quicker than any blizzard. “A mere illusionist who can only ape his betters by stealing magic that doesn’t belong to him.”
Jes felt the impact of her words, the fury loosed in the Shadowed in response to his mother’s mockery. He tried to urge the Guardian to action, but the Shadowed’s response was swifter.
The solsenti wizard gestured and Seraph flew backward, slamming into the road. She bounced once, then lay still.
With a soundless snarl the Guardian raced to her side, still camouflaged from view. The relief of seeing her ribcage rise shook the Guardian’s resolve. Mother was his to protect as well.
“You are not but a dirty little thief,” said Hennea, who had stepped between the others and the Shadowed.
Willon, still enraged, screamed out a smattering of unintelligible syllables that both Jes and the Guardian knew must be some sort of solsenti spell. The Guardian, knowing himself helpless, watched Hennea hold up her hand.
Nothing happened to her.
“A dirty little thief,” Hennea said again, dusting her hands.
Rain began to fall from the clouds Rinnie had been gathering. As the cold drops hit his mother’s face, she opened her eyes. After a moment she sat up slowly. The Guardian started to touch her, but his attention was drawn back to the Shadowed as Willon suddenly staggered and fell.
For a moment Jes thought it was something Hennea had done, but then he saw a knife on the ground and realized Lehr had thrown it with such force it had knocked the Shadowed off his feet. The blade hadn’t penetrated, though, just cut the cloth of Willon’s tunic so the links of chainmail showed beneath.
Phoran sprinted forward, Toarsen a half step behind; but it was too late—Willon had recovered from his surprise.
Hennea shouted, a wordless sound, and Jes could feel her desire to protect the others, but Willon’s magic still sent all three men stumbling backwards. Hennea swayed and he knew the sharp pain that sliced through her at the backlash of the Shadowed’s imperfectly deflected spell.
Mother struggled to get up, and the Guardian helped her to her feet.
“Papa wants me to kill the Shadowed,” the Guardian told her urgently, as he steadied her. “But it will kill Jes or drive him mad. An empath can’t take another’s life�
��not a strong empath like Jes.”
She shivered as if she were cold, the mist of her breath a testimony to the Guardian’s distress. Unable to break through the Guardian’s protective concealment. “You underestimate Jes,” she said. “He is stronger than you believe.”
Yes, said Jes.
Papa, still singing, walked between Willon and the Emperor, setting himself in front of Willon. He walked with a limp, and Jes knew his left knee ached from the old injury. But the knee was as nothing to the torment of the Stalker’s music. He tucked the lute against his body to shield it from the rain as best he could.
Willon raised his hands again, and Rinnie ran between them, shouting, “No!”
It was too much for the Guardian. For Rinnie, for Papa, for his family, both he and Jes were willing to die.
Lightning struck Willon with a deafening crack. He staggered and sobbed, his flesh smoking in the chill of Rinnie’s storm. Lightning struck again, but Willon didn’t fall down. He ran at Rinnie.
But the Guardian was there first. There was no finesse in his attack, but none was needed. Willon didn’t see him until the Guardian hit him the first time. As his fists hit flesh, the fever of battle rose, and the wizard, half-stunned by Rinnie’s lightning, was not much of a challenge—not as long as Papa kept playing so Willon had no access to the Stalker’s power.
“Wait,” said Phoran’s Memory wrapping a hand around the Guardian’s wrist, stopping his strike.
As soon as he was still, the Memory released him. “Hold him for me,” it said.
At the sound of the Memory’s voice, the Shadowed took a step back. The Guardian stepped in and took him in a wrestling hold, pinning the struggling mage to the ground.
The Memory settled beside them and took Willon’s head in its hands. The wizard showed the whites of his eyes and a rising tide of fear poured off him. The Memory bent over him.
Willon screamed and Jes pulled the Guardian around him, letting the Guardian protect him from the worst of Willon’s experience. The firmly muscled body beneath the Guardian began to shrink, the softness of flesh replaced by something dry and hard. When at last the thing the Guardian held quit struggling, and the Memory pulled away, the Shadowed bore no resemblance to Willon, merchant of Redern.
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