by Greg Keyes
“You recognized the place,” he said in utter disbelief.
“The mountain, Aspar. It has a Halafolk rewn in it: the first, the eldest of the rewns. I was born here. So yes, I recognized it. Once I was here, it wasn’t that hard to find you, not with you calling attention to yourself the way you were.”
He digested that for a moment. “And you came just to help me?”
“Yes. Witness—now we’re leaving, and quickly.”
“Why? They’re your folk.”
She chuckled. “Oh, no. Not anymore. Not for a long time. They’ll kill us if they catch us, both of us, I promise you.”
“Fend—”
“Not one of mine, I swear.”
“I know that. I know where Fend is from. But he told me something just as he was about to kill me.”
“That being?”
“That the Sefry are Skasloi.”
She was reaching for her knife and froze in midmotion. Then she laughed again, picked up the knife, and slid it into a scabbard.
“I always wondered if you knew that,” she said. “I thought you might, having been raised by us.”
“No,” Aspar said. “That I would have remembered.”
“I should think so.”
“But how?”
“Well, I’m not that old, my friend. I wasn’t there. They say we changed our form somehow, to be more like you. To fit in.”
“But the Skasloi were all killed.”
“The great ones. The princes. And most of the rest of us. But a few changed, posed as slaves, and so survived.”
She caught his gaze and held it “We aren’t them, Aspar. The Skasloi who enslaved your ancestors are dead.”
“Really? And it never occurred to any of you that you might like to have things the way they were before?”
“I suppose some feel that way,” she said.
“Fend, for instance? Your folk back in the mountain?”
“It’s complicated,” she temporized. “Sefry are no more simple than humans and not much more united.”
“Don’t put me off,” he said.
“I’m not,” she replied. “But we should start moving again. We’ll have to be a lot farther from here before I start to feel safe.”
“But you’ll tell me as we ride?”
She nodded. “Plenty of time. It’s going to be a long ride.”
“Good, then.” He reached for his crutch, and she stooped to help him, but he warned her back with his palm.
“I can do it,” he said.
And after a bit of grimacing, he did, though he needed her help to mount.
He felt stupid sitting behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. Like a kindling.
“We need more horses,” he said.
“I’ve some ideas about that,” she told him.
She nudged the horse into motion.
“He came to you,” she said softly. “The Briar King.”
“Yah.”
“And what? What did he do?”
Aspar paused a moment. “You didn’t see?”
“No. I saw him go to you through a gap in the trees, but I was riding fast. By the time I found you again, he was gone, and Fend was there.”
“He’s dead, Leshya.”
Her spine stiffened.
“I thought I felt something,” she murmured. “I’d hoped…”
“Fend shot him with the same arrow I used to kill the woorm.”
“Oh, no.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “But it isn’t good. It isn’t good at all.”
He looked around him at the trees, remembering the visions of desolation that had been the Briar King’s parting cry.
“Maybe you’d better tell me what you know about that, too,” he muttered.
She agreed with a curt nod of her head. Her shoulders were trembling, and Aspar wondered if she was crying.
Stephen looked up and smiled as Zemlé entered the scriftorium.
“Couldn’t wait, could you?” she asked. “We’ve only been here two days.”
“But look at this place,” Stephen said. “It’s magnificent!”
He nearly wept as he said it. The great room around them was fantastically huge, brimming with thousands of scrifti.
“You know what I found?” he asked her, knowing he was gushing, unable to feel silly about it. “The original Amena Tirson. Pheon’s Treatise on Signatures, of which no copy has been seen in four hundred years!”
“Virgenya Dare’s journal?”
“No, I haven’t found that yet,” he said. “But I will in time, have no fear. There is so much here.”
“There’s more,” Zemlé said. “While you’ve been with your books, I’ve been exploring. There’s a whole city out there, Stephen, and I don’t think all of it was built by the Aitivar. Some of it looks older, so old that they have those stone drips and drops you were talking about on them.”
“I’ll see all of that,” Stephen promised. “You’ll show me.”
“And there’s the faneway they keep talking about.”
“Yes, that,” Stephen mused. “They seem altogether too eager for me to walk that. I’ll want to research a bit before I do it. The faneway Virgenya Dare walked? We’ll see.”
“You don’t trust them?”
“I don’t know,” Stephen said. “I wish I really understood what happened on the mountain the other day.”
“I thought you said Hespero summoned the Briar King.”
“I suppose he did,” Stephen said. “I gave him the horn, months ago. And he did make short work of the khriim, which is, I suppose, why the praifec summoned him. Still, it seems a little odd. I thought Hespero wanted the Briar King destroyed. He sent us out to do just that.”
“Maybe he hoped they would kill each other,” she suggested. “And maybe they did. The Briar King shrank rather quickly after the khriim fell.”
“Maybe,” Stephen allowed.
“We’re just fortunate that Fend and the twelve were able to break Hespero’s forces.”
“I’d be happier if they’d captured him in the bargain,” Stephen said. “He can always come back.”
“If he dares, I’m sure you’ll be ready for him.”
Stephen nodded, scratching his head. “So they tell me.” Then he fell silent.
“Is something the matter?” she asked.
“You remember what you were saying about the traditions from the Book of Return? You called the woorm ‘khirme,’ almost the same as the Aitivar word for it, khriim.”
“Sure.”
“But you also mentioned another foe, Khraukare: the Blood Knight. You said he’s supposed to be my enemy.”
“That’s what the legend says,” Zemlé agreed.
“Well, the day we got here the Aitivar said they’d found the khriim and the khruvkhuryu. They meant Fend. ‘Khruvkhuryu’ and ‘khraukare’ are also cognate. Both mean ‘Blood Knight.’ But Fend claims to be my ally.”
She looked troubled but shrugged. “You’re the one who pointed out how untrustworthy the legends can be,” she said. “Maybe we just had it wrong.”
“Yet there’s more,” Stephen continued. “When I saw Fend’s armor, I was reminded of an engraving I once found in a book and of the caption beneath it. It said, ‘He drinks the blood of the serpent, and rises the tide of woe, the servant of Old Night, the Woorm-Blood Warrior.’”
“I don’t understand.”
“I think Fend wanted the khriim to die so he could taste its blood and become the Blood Knight.”
“But how could he have known the praifec would summon the Briar King?”
“He admitted that Hespero was once an ally. Maybe he still is. Maybe this whole business was some sort of performance for my benefit. All I know is, something still isn’t right.”
Zemlé caught his arm.
“I’ve spoiled your mood,” she said. “You were so happy when I came in.”
He smiled and grabbed he
r around the waist. “I’m still happy,” he said. “Look, whatever Fend is up to, he’s pretending to be my ally, and for the moment, that’s more or less the same as being one. I have everything I need here to figure out what’s really going on, and I will. You were right, Zemlé. It’s time I took matters into my own hands.” He pulled her closer. “Specifically, it’s time I take you in my hands…”
“You’ve certainly grown bolder, sir,” she murmured.
“I’m in a library.” Stephen laughed. “It’s where I do all my best work.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my early readers: my mother, Nancy Ridout Landrum; my wife, Lanelle Keyes; and my friend Nancy Vega. Many thanks to Steve Saffel for seeing this book from conception through the editing process, and for his friendship and moral support. Thanks to Betsy Mitchell, Jim Minz, Fleetwood Robins, and Nancy Delia for taking up the task of production under difficult circumstances. Thanks to Eric Lowenkron, copy editor. Thanks to Dave Stevenson for the snazzy cover design and Stephen Youll for another cool piece of cover art.
Special thanks to Shawn Speakman for his continuing support, and for creating and maintaining my website.
Thanks to Terry and Judine Brooks for wonderful company and conversation touring The Charnel Prince— I appreciate you letting me tag along, guys.
Thanks to “Debbie” Wan Yu Lin, Kim Tatalick, and Meredith Sutton for keeping Archer happy and distracted long enough for me to get some work done.
And another thanks, Nell, for everything.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
GREG KEYES was born in Meridian, Mississippi, to a large, diverse storytelling family. He received degrees in anthropology from Mississippi State and the University of Georgia before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of The Briar King, The Charnel Prince, and the Age of Unreason tetralogy, as well as The Waterborn, The Blackgod, and the Star Wars® New Jedi Order novels Edge of Victory I: Conquest, Edge of Victory II: Rebirth, and The Final Prophecy. He lives in Savannah, Georgia with his wife, Nell, and son, Archer.
By Greg Keyes
The Chosen of the Changeling
THE WATERBORN
THE BLACKGOD
The Age of Unreason
NEWTON’S CANNON
A CALCULUS OF ANGELS
EMPIRE OF UNREASON
THE SHADOWS OF GOD
The Psi Corps Trilogy
BABYLON 5: DARK GENESIS
BABYLON 5: DEADLY RELATIONS
BABYLON 5: FINAL RECKONING
Star Wars : The New Jedi Order
EDGE OF VICTORY I: CONQUEST
EDGE OF VICTORY II: REBIRTH
THE FINAL PROPHECY
The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone
THE BRIAR KING
THE CHARNEL PRINCE
THE BLOOD KNIGHT
The Blood Knight is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2006 by J. Gregory Keyes
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
www.delreybooks.com
eISBN: 978-0-345-49362-0
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