The Sacred Hunt Duology

by Michelle West

  She grimaced. “You leave me no illusion, do you?”

  “You aren’t a woman in need of illusion.” He shrugged, and she thought she caught a glimpse of anger and impatience in the motion. It was hard to tell; all of Kallandras’ public displays were dramatic and not genuine. “You came to me because I was an assassin. You showed me what you needed me to see. I gave up the brotherhood for you, but I took my skills with me.

  “Who, Evayne?”

  Evayne looked at her hands, stiffly clasped in her lap. How long had it been for Kallandras? She counted the years at three. She did not often see him as a youth anymore, and she had forgotten how the choice she had forced upon him could still sting.

  For she had taken him from the brotherhood of the Kovaschaii shortly after she herself had been forced to give up her own life to walk the path of the otherwhen, and she had not been gentle.

  I was younger then, she thought. And youth is always cruel.

  “I play no game with you, Kallandras. I do not know if we will be called upon to kill or to hold our hand. But we travel in search of our history, and I do not know exactly how long it will take.”

  “What do you hope to find?”

  “Nothing. But that’s not what I think we will find.”

  “You’ve been walking again.”

  She nodded. Kallandras was so different from Meralonne. He knew that she traveled in time, but he never asked her what she had seen, or where she had seen it. The past was not his concern, nor was the future. The present was the time for action, and he concentrated his considerable power upon it.

  “It was yesterday,” she said softly. But she could not tell him what she had seen, although she greatly desired the freedom to do so. The dictate of the maker of the otherwhen was absolute. “But what I saw there is not what we will see today.”

  He nodded. “Today?”

  So unlike Meralonne. “As I said, I’m not sure—but I think, if we see anything, we will see the kin.”

  “Servants of darkness,” Kallandras whispered. “So soon. Do you think it will be over with this?”

  She did not answer because she knew the answer was not the one he wanted—yearned—to hear. “Be ready,” she said softly.

  • • •

  “What do you know of the history of Vexusa?” Evayne’s robes had fallen back into their familiar shape. She did not regret the loss of the matron’s dress, as perhaps she had regretted other gowns in the past.

  She let the curtains fall back into place and turned from the window of the Imperial State’s hotel room. Her eyes were light, yet somehow dark, as if they reflected both the aurora and the night sky.

  Kallandras shrugged. He sat stiffly in one of three high-backed chairs. Both of his feet were planted against the floor, and his hands rested in his lap.

  “You would have made a terrible mage,” she said, and smiled.

  “I never wanted to be anything but Kovaschaii,” he replied. “And you cost me that.”

  It had been long since she had seen him in his youth, and she had forgotten how much his words could cut. At twenty, he did not view her as the ambivalent friend he would know her to be when he became forty. She remembered, as well as she was able, what she had been like at twenty. Meeting Kallandras as an older man had been a shock, then. We circle each other, Kallan. Will we never walk the same path?

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and she meant it. “I would not have taken you from your life of death had I another choice.”

  “So you’ve said.” He did not relent.

  “Kallan—”

  “Tell me what we seek, Evayne.”

  She turned back to the window, looking for a way out. To come straight from Meralonne to the intense chill of Kallandras . . . “History, as I said.”

  “If you seek history, then you have far to go. Vexusa exists in legend and lore, but the annals of the wise have very little to offer in the way of truths. If you remember,” he added coldly, “the city was destroyed by the combined wrath of the god-born; it was razed to the last stone.”

  “Vexusa existed in far more than the fancy of beautiful voices and children’s tales.” Her voice became remote. “You know the old Weston bardic lays?”

  “Some.”

  “Do you know the Fall of Light?”

  “Yes.” Grudgingly, he added, “It was about the loss of the Wizard Wars, when the Dark League destroyed the last of the Dawn Rose.”

  “And do you know the Hand of Myrddion?”

  He nodded again. “Shall I get my lute?” His voice was tinged with a trace of sarcasm, but his fingers began to flex where they rested against his thighs.

  “If you wish it, yes.”

  He looked down at his hands and then back at her; he stayed his ground. He knew what compassion was although the learning of it had been difficult, but he would not lay it at her feet; not yet. “Myrddion was a mage of the Dawn Rose. He fought and failed against the Dark League when he was betrayed by Ancathyron, his apprentice. Carythas, who led the Dark League, stripped Myrddion of his power, and put him on display in the coliseum in Vexusa, the capital of the mage-state. They cut off his right hand, and then they set him to fight.

  “He died.”

  Evayne raised an eyebrow. It was hard to believe that Kallandras was so good a bard that he had already built a reputation for himself. She almost said as much, but she knew what his response would be, and she did not wish to hear it again. Instead, she said, “And the hand?”

  “Myrddion’s right hand had five rings. After his death, Carythas had the hand brought to him and attempted to claim the rings for his own use. He set them upon his hand, and they began to burn him.

  “He died, as well.”

  “He did not understand their nature,” Evayne said.

  “No one did,” Kallandras replied. “Or do you?”

  She shook her head, and pulled the curtains, briefly, away from the window again; the sky above was darkening. With Kallandras, she walked a tightrope; the spirit of the law of the otherwhen had been violated on a dozen occasions, but never the letter—the letter, through no choice of her own, was kept and would always be kept. She discussed “known” history, of course. She did not discuss whether or not she had been present at its unfolding. And Kallandras, so unlike Meralonne, never cared to ask. “Not fully, no. They were a set, and they operated as a set, at a particular moment. Myrddion—he knew that he was going to be betrayed; I’m certain of it. He knew that those rings would be taken from his body by no less a mage than Carythas. It was a trap.”

  Her voice broke on the last word. “It must have been a trap.” She closed her eyes, and prayed that it was so—because he had died such a hideous, demeaning death to lay it. In the end, although he had been a strong man, he had screamed and pleaded, and eventually, after the hours had whiled away and the crowds had their fill of their greatest enemy’s torment, they granted him his death. And she had watched; all she had done was watch. Even prayer had been beyond her.

  It was the third time that the otherwhen had taken her to so distant a past. She prayed that there would be no fourth visit. “What happened to the rings?”

  Kallandras shrugged. “After Carythas’ death, three mages attempted to touch the rings. They also perished, although less hideously and less slowly than Carythas. Carythas fought Myrddion’s trap to the end.”

  Evayne nodded. There was a grim satisfaction in both his death and the time it took him to surrender to it.

  “The fourth mage attempted to lift them by spell, but they would not be coaxed by any magic he could cast. There was no fifth mage; no one was willing to touch them. The lays do not make clear what the eventual fate of the rings was, but it is believed, in legends associated with the lays and contemporary to them, that the rings remained a part of the coliseum—that they could not be moved, although they did not serve an
active purpose after the death of Carythas.” He stopped. “You think they’re still in the coliseum in Vexusa.”

  “I don’t know. But . . . yes, I do. If they could not be moved by the greatest of the mages of the League, the enchantment on them was one that defies description.” She would not look at Kallandras until she could school her face. “Therefore, the coliseum in Vexusa is important—and it still exists, although Vexusa does not.”

  “Averalaan.” His voice was almost hushed, “You think it here somewhere, or you would not be here.”

  “Yes,” she said, and this time, pale but steady, she turned away from the support of the window ledge. “It stands near the heart of Averalaan.” She was on safe ground again, for she could always speak of the here and the now.

  He was silent a long time, absorbing her news. She thought him pale, and the arrogant ice of his expression was chilled for a moment by something other than his great anger toward her.

  His lips moved over a single word as he bowed his fair head. “Where, Evayne?” he said at length. He knew the city better than any but another member of the brotherhood. “The coliseum for the King’s Challenge was built after the founding. There is no other coliseum in Averalaan.”

  She slid her hands into the sleeves of her robes. Kallandras frowned with mild distaste as the orb of the seer appeared between her palms.

  She did not notice the grimace. Her attention was absorbed by the silver mist as she stared into the world that only the seer-born could see. “It exists, Kallan. It exists in darkness, but it is part of the here and now.” He did not ask her how she knew; he never did.

  “You think our mission is to find these rings.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Assume it’s so. What of her?” He pointed to the figure that slept, with her knees curled up to her chest, in the center of the crimson counterpane.

  “It’s important that she travel with us,” Evayne’s voice was a study in neutrality. “Our road is the same road for the time being—and I believe that only she can set us upon that road.” The ball she held cast light against her face like a shimmering web.

  Kallandras looked away. “Where is the coliseum?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hidden.” She smiled grimly. “Even the seer-born would have trouble piercing the darkness that surrounds it.”

  “And you?”

  “I have trouble. If I did not know exactly what to look for, I would see nothing out of the ordinary.” She lifted the soul-crystal high; the web across her face pulsed suddenly, a lightning mask. She walked over to the bed. “Child.” She took a deeper breath. “Espere. Come. It is time to find the legacy that your father’s people have long forgotten. Can you feel it? We are close.”

  The girl’s eyes flickered open. She lifted her head and rested her chin upon the backs of her wrists as she gazed quizzically up at Evayne.

  Evayne lowered one hand to touch the girl’s upturned forehead. The girl flinched, and the seeress paled. The orb spun; the clouds within it grew murky and dark for a moment. “Let me lend you what you do not have, child. We cannot wait for your proper time. Tonight we must hunt in the city streets.” Silver sparkled in a web of mist and light. It covered them both, melting like snow against skin.

  The girl’s eyes began to change color; the alteration gradual enough that an observer might miss the transformation completely. She frowned and then looked up at Evayne, meeting violet eyes with golden ones. She looked around at her surroundings: the bed, the curtained window, the empty desk, and the unused grate. Then she nodded almost gravely and rose, sliding her legs toward the carpets beneath her bare feet. Those feet were callused and padded; the stones and pebbles of the city streets made no impression upon them.

  “We will follow as we are able,” Evayne said, as the wild girl approached the door and reached for the handle.

  Kallandras rose from the chair he occupied. He was tense, the line of his jaw hard and sharp. “Evayne—what did you do?”

  “It’s an old healing spell,” she said quietly.

  He met her weary gaze with narrowed eyes before nodding grimly. They both knew he knew she was lying.

  • • •

  Averalaan at night was the shadow-twin of its daylight self. The moon’s light across the open bay was high and full, but it shone on an empty stage; the city’s streets were almost deserted. In isolated wells of light and noise, people gathered for entertainment and company.

  Evayne, Kallandras, and Espere avoided them. They each used the shadows in their own way. Evayne drew them up like a cloak, with a touch of magic to seal them; Kallandras used them as a wall to hide in and behind; Espere used them as a guide.

  They did not speak. They felt no need of words, and indeed, words would have been more of a barrier than a bridge. Here, with night come and darkness a friend, silence was a shield and a weapon, and the better armed they were, the more confident they felt in their companions.

  Espere moved with a purpose that was singular and new; her steps were lighter and her eyes quicker than they had yet been. She paid attention to the buildings that she passed in and around, staring at them in wonderment. Children gazed at the new and the unfamiliar in just such a way. She did not linger, though; her hunt drew her on.

  Kallandras watched her dart back and forth. He saw her stop once or twice in the long stretches of cobbled road, turning her face to the breeze as if it bore a scent she could follow. He could make no sense out of what she was doing, and that annoyed him, but he knew better than to interrupt or break the silence with questions.

  The hotel that Evayne had chosen was in the most sensible part of Averalaan; merchants patronized it, and many foreign to Essalieyan were also quartered there, with their followers or their companions. Among them, three people of any description were unlikely to stand out, and any business that had to be done could be done almost freely. Espere led them out of the quarter, which was unfortunate.

  What was worse was where she led them. The roads narrowed; the buildings began to close in on the street. Here, the moon’s light was blocked by the height of narrow, closely spaced buildings that housed whole families. Averalaan was as safe as any city could be—but it was a city, still, and even at its heart there were darknesses that wise men did not trespass upon.

  He watched as the wild girl began to lead them to the most dangerous of the hundred holdings.

  “What’s wrong?” Evayne said softly, her voice coming out of silence and leaving no echo in its wake. Magery.

  He had a like way of answering her, and wrapped his own reply in bardic tones, precise and cool. “She’s leading us to the thirty-fifth.”

  “Thirty-fifth?”

  “There are two holdings in the hundred that are dangerous. The thirty-fifth is the worst.” If he thought it odd that she did not understand the shorter reference, he kept his own counsel.

  “Why?” Again, the word carried in an unnatural stillness.

  His shrug was answer enough. “It is known,” he said.

  “Not to the Kings.” She lifted her head as Espere caught the shadows and came sliding between them to stand before her.

  Above them, the bowers of trees older than the city let the moonlight through in a dappled, dark pattern. The freestanding circles were planted throughout the old city in a pattern that not even the wise understood. They were tended by the Mother’s children, and hidden behind the bases of their broad, dark trunks, one could often find those who made of the night a private affair.

  Beneath the height of their highest branches, the rooftops sheltered—and these roofs were three stories and more above the ground.

  “If it were winter,” the seeress said gravely to the young girl, “I would not have been able to pull you this far back.”

  The girl cocked her head a moment, as if listening to the wind. Then she lifted a slender arm and pointed. To the
ground.

  “Where, wild one?” Evayne said softly.

  Again, the wild girl lifted her arm, but this time, in the shadows of buildings that blocked the full moon, it was clear that she pointed not to the door of the tall building, in, at best, a questionable state of repair. No, she pointed instead to the trapdoor in the street beside it, where wood was placed by cutters’ wagons, for the course of the cooler season. In Averalaan, winter was mild nine seasons out of ten.

  Kallandras stepped forward. Dressed for the street and the night, he wore no lute—and the lute was the only thing that softened him in Evayne’s eyes. His hair was pulled back so tightly it showed no evidence of the curl and bounce that was the envy of many a young court lady.

  He raised a pale brow at Evayne, and she a dark one in return. If the stuff of dark legends stood here—in any age—it was in an age so long forgotten that nothing at all remembered it. Shrugging, he began to walk toward the closed trap.

  Evayne watched as he unlocked and unlatched the banded, wooden door. It creaked on heavy hinges, but he lifted it as if it weighed nothing. Opening the slender, slight pouch strapped to his hip as part of his clothing, he pulled something out and held it for a moment in the flat of his palms. By it, the underside of his jaw was illuminated.

  Curling his fingers around it, he let the darkness obscure him again. “I’ll be back,” he said softly.

  He did not return.

  Chapter Seven

  AN HOUR PASSED.

  Evayne could feel it as clearly as she could see it; the moon moving across the sky, changing by slow degree the texture of the shadows the buildings cast against the dark road. The wait was difficult, and not only for her.

  Espere looked up at the seer, and then away again. She had repeated this motion every few minutes since Kallandras had gone down into the darkness that the trapdoor covered.

  “He’s gone,” Evayne said softly. The wild girl edged forward toward the trap itself, sniffing at the air before turning to face the seer.

  It had gone on for too long already.