Hattim turned about the instant the door closed, but still there was no sign of Taws, neither in the antechamber nor the bedroom, nor on the balcony, and the Lord of Ust-Galich felt his confidence return, though not so much as to preclude his draining of the glass of evshan remaining from the previous night.
He felt the fire of the alcohol seep into his belly and wondered if he should return to his bed. Somehow he felt unwilling to lie between the sheets while Taws wrought his will on the Sister and so he dressed hurriedly, forsaking his customary toilette with a grimace of distaste. He combed his long hair and adjusted the earring dangling from his left lobe. Habit set bracelets on his wrists and a modest selection of rings upon his fingers. He had time to fill a fresh cup with evshan and drain it before the Sister Hospitaler arrived.
Sister Thera was surprised by the appearance of the Lord Hattim. The pumpkin-faced courtier who had summoned her had led her to believe his master was close to death, and while she bore no affection for Hattim, considering him an upstart popinjay, she had responded swiftly in accordance with her calling. She had doubted the malaise was quite so dramatic as Celeruna suggested, thinking that—from her knowledge of the Galichian lord—he was most probably suffering the aftereffects of river sickness exacerbated by excessive consumption of wine, but still she had anticipated a sick man. Instead she found him dressed, albeit in more disheveled state than was his fastidious custom, and drinking evshan. She studied his face, thinking that he did, indeed, look feverish, his eyes burning bright, and that his manner was extremely nervous.
She dropped an almost indiscernible curtsy as she inquired, “You are unwell, my Lord Hattim?”
“I . . .” Hattim glanced around the room. “I . . Yes! I am . . . unwell.”
Sister Thera wondered why he appeared so nervous. Why his eyes moved everywhere save to her face, almost as though he were afraid to meet her gaze; as if he expected some third party to be present even though his sycophant had made clear his wish to be alone.
“The symptoms?” She set down her satchel as she spoke, unclasping the bag with an eye to some simple nostrum, suspecting that he wasted her time.
Hattim stared at her, turning his head before she could meet his eyes. He did not recognize her, seeing only a young woman in the blue robe of the Sorority, her hair a pale brown, plaited about a vaguely pretty face that now exhibited signs of impatience.
“My symptoms?”
“Aye, my Lord, your symptoms. I cannot prescribe a cure until I know the symptoms.”
“The symptoms,” Hattim muttered, anxiety flushing his features.
“My Lord Hattim, I was summoned from my prayers to tend a man described as sick by that ...” Sister Thera bit back the insulting description she was about to voice. “By Count Celeruna. I have ample tasks awaiting my attention and the sooner I am able to prescribe for you, the sooner I may attend them. What exactly do you feel? Nausea? Does your head ache? Do you sweat?”
Hattim heard the impatience in her voice and licked his lips nervously, wondering where Taws was; wondering if he should allow the Sister to examine him, or fake symptoms. Surely either course must lead to discovery of his blasphemous alliance. This woman was a Hospitaler, and so versed in the healing arts rather than the metaphysical, but even so she would, he felt certain, sense some aura about him, know that he lied.
Indeed, Sister Thera was beginning to doubt the truth of Celeruna’s description and the nature of Hattim’s discomfort. Her talent, as Hattim surmised, was for healing and she had little experience of the magical arts, but Estrevan had trained her to read the signs implicit in a man’s body, in the way he moved, in his voice, in his mannerisms. Hattim Sethiyan, she thought, might well be feverish; sweat beaded his upper lip and forehead, and his skin—pale in the fashion of the Galichian nobility—was flushed, but it appeared to her from nerves, rather than river sickness or alcohol. He seemed afraid to meet her eyes. In fact, it seemed he was loath to look at her at all, his gaze roaming the chamber as though he anticipated the momentary arrival of another. She turned from her satchel and took a step toward him. Hattim took a step back, but not before the Sister felt a presence that she could not understand.
She halted, confused. What she sensed came not from Hattim, though she felt he was . . . involved ... in it, but from somewhere—some thing—in the room. She had not sailed with the king’s party to the Lozin Gate, but Sisters who did had described to her the sense of palpable evil that clouded beyond the walls and she felt intuitively that she experienced the same oppression here. She frowned, telling herself it was ridiculous to even consider that Ashar’s malignancy might fester in Andurel, in the chambers of the Lord of Ust-Galich moreover. Yet it was there. She felt it in the chilling of her bones; the tingling at the nape of her neck, where hair stood rigid as in a lightning storm.
She said, “My Lord Hattim,” in a faltering tone and then felt her eyes drawn upward as if by some incontrovertible power.
What she saw there transformed her eyes to wide staring globes of stark horror, springing her mouth open in formation of a scream.
No sound escaped her yawning jaws, however. There was no time, for the great red spider descended a silken line with dreadful rapidity, falling onto her upturned face to clamp its legs about her cheeks and jam her mouth with the obscene bulb of its abdomen.
Hattim leapt backward, his own eyes wild with revulsion, his own mouth gaping as genuine nausea roiled his belly. He stared, fascinated despite himself, as the spider fastened itself to the Sister’s features, seeing every detail of the swollen body, the hairs that bristled rusty as dried blood, the multiple eyes that gleamed a hellish red above the clicking mandibles, the swollen sac that thrust obscenely between her lips. Cold sweat chilled his back as he watched, unable to prevent himself, as the spider turned full circle and lowered itself into Sister Thera’s mouth. The head disappeared, propelled by the eight jointed legs, and he saw the Sister’s throat bulge, a madness bom of stark terror shining in her tear-filled eyes, as the sac dragged over her lips and forced her jaws wide apart. He heard a choking sound and it was too much: he spun about, clutching at his stomach as he stumbled toward the balcony.
He tore the doors open and doubled over, his belly heaving as yellow bile gushed from his mouth. Pain clamped fiercely on his intestines and he clutched at the carved stone of the balustrade to prevent himself from pitching into the pool of vomit.
His hands were trembling as he forced himself upright and he heard his own teeth chattering in jaws he could no longer control. For a wild instant he contemplated shouting for guards, for Sisters versed in thaumatology; thought of screaming a warning that the
Messenger was come to Andurel, that Ashar’s minion stood in the White Palace.
Then Taws’s voice jerked his eyes back to the chamber and he knew it was too late. Had been too late from the moment in Nyrwan when he bent his knee to the mage and accepted the compact offered. Slowly, his feet leaden, he entered the chamber.
“They cannot find me now.”
The words came from Sister Thera, sibilant with triumph.
“Taws?” Hattim mumbled, his tongue sour with bile.
“I possess her now.” The voice changed as the Sister—no! Hattim reminded himself, Taws—spoke, losing the susurrant intonation, becoming that of Thera. “She lives, and that life protects me from discovery. They will not see past her to me, so we are safe.”
Hattim walked falteringly to the ewer and swilled water around his mouth. He stooped, splashing his face, then crossed quickly to the flask of evshan and filled a goblet.
“You find my magic distasteful?” It was fully the Sister’s voice now and somehow that was worse: Hattim drained the evshan in a single swallow, gasping as it lit fire in his emptied belly. “How could I give you what you want if I must hide in these chambers? Now I can go freely about the palace; unsuspected. Now I can fulfill all your dreams.”
Hattim stared, seeking some change in the woman, seeking some sign
of Taws, but there was none. The voice was that of the Sister, the movements hers; there was nothing to indicate the body was possessed.
“You will announce yourself recovered,” she—Taws!—said, the voice calm, “and praise the excellent Sister Thera. You will request King Darr release her from palace service to tend you as part of your retinue. Do you understand?”
“Aye,” Hattim answered hoarsely.
“In all other respects you will behave in your customary fashion,” Taws ordered, “and proceed with your courtship of Ashrivelle. In a little while you will introduce the princess to your new-found Hospitaler, and then I will make her yours. I will give her to you so that you may possess her as surely as I possess this bitch’s carcass, and you may do whatever you wish with her.”
“And Darr?” Hattim asked slowly. “What of the throne?”
“That, too, will be yours in time,” Taws promised. “But first, the princess.”
He stepped close to Hattim then and the Lord of Ust-Galich found himself looking into green eyes that dissolved abruptly into red, fiery pits that burned with an awful intensity, driving out doubt with their menace.
“As you order it,” said Hattim.
“Aye,” said Taws, and the fires died, the eyes becoming green again, “as I and Ashar order it.”
The Fedyn Pass remained gloomy late into the morning and even when the sun was risen high enough that it breasted the confining crags the light was poor. It was as though the canyon resented the intrusion of day, preferring sullen shadows, a place of darkness and night. The sky above was dull, metallic with the threat of snow, the sun—when it at last became visible—a faint memory of the brilliant orb that had greeted their entry. They rode in silence, as if the great stone walls denied them the right of speech, and after observing the trail, Kedryn let go his hold of Wynett’s hand, content to ride in darkness, letting the Keshi stallion pick a way behind Tepshen Lahl’s mount.
He heard the kyo call a halt and reined in as Wynett heeled her bay in close, taking his hand that he might see their stopping place.
It was miserable enough, long sweeps of ice-crusted snow layered over dark rock, the walls rising to meet the heavens, black and gray save for where ice glistened. Breath steamed in the chill air, and Kedryn’s cheeks stung with cold. He looked at Wynett and saw her face flushed by the brumal wind that sighed and sang a mournful dirge over the implacable surfaces of the forbidding granite, drawing unbidden tears that trickled over the black smudges beneath her eyes.
“This is a sad place,” he remarked, smiling despite it.
Wynett nodded, drawing the hood of her cloak tighter about her face.
“Grain for the animals and cold food for us,” announced Tepshen. “We’ll find timber once we clear this place and eat hot food again.”
The Tamurin grunted agreement and set to opening the provisions Gann Resyth had provided, spreading blankets over their mounts against the danger of chills. Kedryn allowed a man to take his horse, settling in a crouch beside Wynett, where she huddled in the lee of a boulder. Tepshen joined them there, passing Kedryn a slab of near-frozen meat and a chunk of bread.
“The horses are fretful,” he murmured.
“They like this place no better than us,” said Kedryn.
“It is more than that, I think,” Wynett said softly. “They sense something. I feel it too.”
“What?” Tepshen Lahl’s face was urgent, his jet eyes flickering over the restive animals, back to the Sister’s face.
“I am not sure.” Wynett shrugged, the movement almost hidden beneath the bulk of her cloak and fur-lined jerkin. “Gwenyl said this was Ashar’s domain and what I feel here I remember from High Fort, when the Horde drew close.”
“Best we pass through swiftly then,” said the kyo, rising to his feet to shout, “We move as soon as the horses are fed!”
There was no disagreement and the Tamurin remounted with hunks of bread and pieces of meat still clutched in their gloved hands, their animals no less willing to be on the move again.
“Stay close,” Tepshen advised, bringing his gray up alongside Kedryn and the Sister, turning in his saddle to study the men behind.
Wynett nodded, her own mount close enough to Kedryn’s that their legs touched as the horses picked up the pace, shod hooves clattering loud in the cathedral silence.
Then she gasped and reached for his hand, not for sake of granting him sight but from innate need of her own. Kedryn took it, looking about him as he sensed her anxiety.
“What is it?”
The sharpness of his question prompted Tepshen Lahl to turn again.
“Do you not hear it?” she asked softly, fearfully, her gaze roving over the surrounding rock faces.
“Hear what?” the kyo demanded, a hand falling instinctively to his sword hilt as he followed her eyes.
“Aye!” Kedryn’s voice was hushed, a question incipient in his tone. “Laughter.”
“Mad laughter!” gasped Wynett. “Tepshen! We must ride from here as swiftly as possible.”
The easterner gave no argument, nor sought any further amplification. He rose in his stirrups to shout a single word: “Ride!”
As one, the Tamurin drove heels to flanks and brought their animals to a gallop, the steady clattering of the hooves becoming a thunder that rang from the stone, echoing down the pass even as the laughter grew louder, rising above the din of their passage so that every man there heard it and felt the chill of its malignancy.
It was as though some insane giant tittered, chuckling and snorting with malicious glee, the sound rising to a weird cackling, then a storm-bellow of wild laughter that rang in winter-numbed ears, filling the Fedyn Pass with its lunacy and its awful threat. It became a pealing of thunder and Kedryn let go Wynett’s hand as their horses surged onward, anxious as their riders to escape the ghastly sound.
It dinned louder and louder, filling their minds until it seemed the madness in it must affect them, terrifying the animals, who galloped with ears laid flat back and eyes rolling, saliva lathering their necks and chests. It grew louder than sound, becoming a vibration of the very air that shimmered about them, the walls of rock seeming to bulge inward, pulsing with the awful resonance. A man screamed a warning from the rear and Wynett turned, looking back to see the bulging of the rock become a reality, great shards of stone pitching loose from the walls, great slabs of frozen snow hurtling downward.
“What is it?” Kedryn bellowed.
“Ride for your life!” she shouted in answer.
He heard the urgency in her tone rather than the form of the words, for the thunder that filled the pass drowned understanding, and slammed his heels against the stallion’s ribs even though the black horse needed no further urging to speed. Wynett flanked him, Tepshen Lahl slightly ahead, queue flying in the wind of his passage, lashing his face as he craned round to stare aghast at the devastation behind.
It seemed the whole of the Fedyn Pass crumbled beneath the onslaught of that wild laughter, the rimrock sharding as massive blocks broke loose from the walls, crashing down in a tumult of white, the darkness of the granite lost as an unimaginable weight of snow fell, erupting a billowing, storm-driven curtain that gusted with hurricane force along the length of the narrow way. Only the foremost of the Tamurin riders were visible, those behind lost in that wild, swirling mist, and even as the kyo stared, horrified, a monumental slab crashed upon them and they were gone in the coruscating blizzard that accompanied its downfall. Two men emerged, white-shrouded, then disappeared as more snow fell, an avalanche that drowned warriors and horses alike in its irrepressible fury. Snow filled the easterner’s eyes and he blinked furiously, trusting in his mount to find its own path, trusting the Lady to protect Kedryn and her acolyte, for he knew there was nothing he could do save ride for his own life, seeking desperately to outrun the tidal wave of snow and stone that roared behind them.
It seemed they rode in the heart of the blizzard, barely visible to one another even though
they were so close their animals jostled as they thundered down the pass. Their ears were deaf with the raging of the avalanche, their mouths speechless, their hearts filled with dread, for it seemed their quest was doomed to end here, almost before it had begun. Snow filled their world and the ground beneath their horses’ hooves trembled with the destruction that threatened to engulf them.
Then sound returned, the crashing of rock and the sullen roaring of snow fading. The blizzard faltered, the wind dying so that crystals of glittering light filled the pass. There was a final moaning sigh, a frustrated sound, and then only the pounding of hooves.
Tepshen slowed his panic-stricken animal, seeing Wynett and Kedryn clearly again, and shouted, “It is over. Are we safe?”
This last was directed at the Sister, who raised frightened eyes to look around, her head cocked as though she listened for a recurrence of the laughter before she said cautiously, “I think so.”
The kyo brought his mount to a halt, rubbing at the trembling neck, soothing the beast. Wynett and Kedryn followed suit, and Kedryn took her hand, seeing for the first time what lay behind them.
He gasped when he saw it, for where the Fedyn Pass had been there was no longer any way through the mountains. Snow- covered stone filled the gap, black slabs of jagged granite thrusting from the enveloping white, great drifts spilling out and down, impassable. He shuddered, his grip tightening on Wynett’s hand so that she winced with the pressure, seeing awe and anger mingled in his gaze,
“The others?” he asked.
“There,” said Tepshen Lahl somberly, pointing toward the barrier that blocked the way to Tamur. “Entombed.”
“Ashar’s work,” murmured Wynett. “He seeks to halt us. He seeks to destroy us.”
“He will not!” Determination rang in Kedryn’s voice. “By the Lady, I swear he will not!”
“We have more than Ashar to contend with now,” Tepshen said softly. “Our supplies lie there. We have only what we carry with us. And all the Beltrevan to cross.”
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