“Fear drives a being like that.” The voice belonged to Martah, who watched Ceth fight on his dying winds. “So,” she added, not looking at anyone in particular, “what frightens a man like that?”
Pevah’s eyes widened ever so slightly as he regarded her. When he turned back to the west, he saw the Night Lord with fresh eyes, and then he frowned, the questions he had likely asked himself a thousand times over resurfacing and paving roads both familiar and new.
“I spent a long time with regret,” he said. “I warned your guardian, the White Crest, not to fight him. I warned T’Alon. But what if I had joined them? Could we have done it? Should we have?” The regret showed through even now, but his voice changed, giving way to an acceptance Iyana did not share. “Alas, the wheel is turning. The World Apart is coming closer. Beings like this will come more readily. Perhaps worse.”
“And what do you plan to do about it?” Iyana asked. Pevah didn’t answer, and she saw the flames of lavender and light dancing in his eyes. “The World needs you, Pevah. No matter what you’ve done before. It needs you now.”
He was shaking his head before she was through.
“The World never needed us,” he said, “no matter what we thought and no matter what our egos told us.” He turned to her. “It has you, now. It has the Landkist.” He swept his gaze to encompass those behind her. “They have the Landkist, whether they like it or not. The Landkist will choose the manner of the World’s ending. Just as they will choose the manner of ours.” He turned back. “It will be enough, or it won’t. Our part in it is done, or soon will be.”
She didn’t like the way he said the last, but her response was drowned out by a roar that sounded louder, clearer and closer than any of the previous ones.
“You plan to die,” Sen said, speaking the words she felt. It didn’t come out like a question. “You plan what the Eastern Dark, it seems, has already planned for you.”
“I wonder,” Pevah said, seemingly speaking to himself more than Sen. “I wonder if he will turn the blade on himself in the end.” His looked seemed to suggest he found the possibility doubtful. “Perhaps it will be for the best. Who can know? I’m through trying to see all ends because all ends are the same.”
“I don’t believe that,” Iyana said. “And neither, I think, do you.” There was only the slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth, but she thought she had hit on something, there.
“You said he would come back for you,” Sen continued, his voice taking on an edge.
“He has,” Pevah said, and the way he said it sent a cold and creeping dread up Iyana’s spine that Sen seemed to pick up on by extension. The feeling swept through the lot of them like an infection, like a passing frost or a wind that didn’t belong to the season.
“My reckoning is at hand,” Pevah said, smiling as if it could be a joke, though Iyana would sooner retch than laugh. She wanted to curl into a ball and rock herself into oblivion and did not know why. She was the last to turn to the east, and while the sight itself was mundane to the point of being disappointing, the cold and creeping dread it inspired only increased tenfold.
“I heard a bell tolling.”
The man stood atop the rise. He was far away. Too far for his voice to carry as it did. He wore a brown cloak with the hood thrown back. His face was lined, old without being elderly. His eyes, which Iyana could see clear as day, were bright and cold as the starlight hanging behind him, and his hair was salt and pepper, cut rough and blowing in the wind from the fight in the west. He held one hand out to his side, palm open and facing the lot of them. He held it like it was a weapon, though she could see nothing clutched therein and could sense no power apart from that his confidence projected.
“Your bell,” Pevah said, stepping forward. He swept a hand behind him to indicate the Night Lord, which the newcomer watched with the part of his gaze not fixed on Pevah. All of the foreboding their Sage’s prior words contained had blown out, replaced by a sense of expectance—even relief. He moved beyond the red- and gray-sashes and their bared blades, his desert children looking to him for guidance, tense and ready to spring into action should he demand it.
The Eastern Dark made a sound that might have been a laugh, though it ended in a crooked grimace. He gave a single shake that might have been a twitch, and his stare was disgust and disappointment.
“You’ve made a mess of the place,” he said, looking around lazily like a bird scanning a morning field. His eyes slid over the desert nomads and moved slower over the Valley soldiers before stopping on Iyana for a beat longer. She saw something like recognition flash in the look—the work of an upturned brow—but that too passed quickly, and the Eastern Dark looked upon the painted warriors they had slain. She saw his throat move and wondered if the Sage had it in him to feel pity.
She did not think he did.
“The crones have been busy, I see,” he said, and Iyana looked to Pevah. The old man’s demeanor might appear calm but she saw his elongated fingers grow longer still, the black nails turning to talons. His red hood blew in the wind and glinted orange in the light, and where before it had appeared as cloth, now it looked like fur. She thought she saw small bumps and tufts of white that recalled ears, and when he spoke she saw sharp teeth in the place of smooth.
“As have I, brother,” he said. “As have I.”
The Eastern Dark looked as if he might step forward. He even started to, but something in Pevah’s expression stopped him. He quirked his chin and adopted a look of mild surprise that may or may not have been feigned.
“No doubt you and I have an accounting to come,” he said.
“No doubt,” Pevah answered, flat, all his prior humor and calm having dissolved. There was a wash of heat that blew the cloaks and rattled the scabbards on their belts, and Iyana felt it on the back of her neck. It was not a pleasant and comforting warmth like the sun. It was a searing heat drifting on cool winds, too far to hurt and too near not to sting.
“For now,” the Eastern Dark said, nodding toward the western horizon, “should we not see to the matter at hand?”
“Not your matter to see to,” Pevah said, his teeth nearly grinding. Iyana saw his left hand twitching, black talons scraping together like an itch. His legs had bent and he was hunched more than usual, though he seemed larger all the same. His breath came quicker. She could see the steam coming from his mouth in small plumes where before it had in lazy rivers.
“Do you still pretend to know my purpose?” the Eastern Dark said. “Do you still pretend it to be wrong?”
“You unleashed a Night Lord on the west,” Pevah said.
“Four.”
“Three we slew.”
“Not you,” he said. “And not all of them.” His gaze drifted toward the south, and Iyana felt the first beginnings of anger fighting its way through the fear and confusion as his dispassionate eyes touched the dark sky over the Valley core
He looked back.
“He took the Hearts. I knew he would,” he said. “You cannot blame me for what befell him after.”
“I can,” Pevah said, his voice a growl. “I do.”
“Besides,” the other Sage ignored him, his gaze flicking back up behind them, “this one kept you busy for a time. Kept you from making things worse.” Iyana could see his eyes take on a purple sheen as they took in another jet from the beast.
“If you mean to stand in my way—”
“We do,” Iyana said.
His cold eyes found her and held her. Panicked, she surged into the Between and found him following along behind, like a black wraith on cold winds. She cried out and fell to her knees and felt Sen’s hands grip her, and when she looked up, panting, she saw that he had already moved on, their brief exchange nothing but a fleeting and mild curiosity to him.
“I do,” Pevah said, mirroring her words. He did not look at her. He would not take his eyes from the Sage atop the rise. The score or more Valley soldiers and desert nomads began to encircle the rise as the Sage they followed made
his intentions clear.
The Eastern Dark considered them. He did not seem disappointed to be challenged, even if his words said otherwise.
“You will not help me in this?” he asked, his left hand rising as if pulled by a string, one finger pointing toward the west. “A beast like that doesn’t belong.”
“It’s being dealt with,” Pevah said.
Now his laugh seemed genuine as his left hand dropped. Iyana noticed that the right hadn’t so much as twitched. She saw Pevah glancing at it, saw the sweat beading on his face.
“I know the power of the Embers more than most,” the other Sage said. “More than all, I’d wager. But that is only one. And that is a Night Lord, ‘Pevah.’” He put a harsh inflection on the name and Pevah cringed at it. “A Night Lord, and not a simple one. You underestimate him.”
“You underestimate them,” Pevah said, and Iyana did not think he meant the Embers alone. She felt a misplaced warmth as she got back to her feet. She waved off Ket’s concerns as he moved toward her, bloody steel bared. He swallowed and switched back to the man on the rise, though he seemed to shake with the need to turn around.
It was strange to be so focused on this seeming non-threat before them when a beast unlike any they’d seen raged behind. But Pevah was old. Even had he not been a Sage, Iyana would know to follow the direction of his gaze and the concern that went with it before any other.
“What have you told them of me, I wonder? What do the newts know of the Eastern Dark?” He smiled without warmth or humor. “A fitting name for blame, don’t you think?” She did not think he was addressing Pevah, and when his gaze went sliding once more, it slid right back to her. This time, she did not recoil.
Pevah, it seemed, was through talking. He was the only one in their company who hadn’t moved. Even Sen was beginning to circle, and Iyana could feel the tug of his tether on hers. He was likely checking on the lot of them, making sure he could reach them should the need arise. Iyana felt her heart hammering in her chest. She wanted to act but did not know how.
She tested the Between, afraid she might fall back into that strange rush, but she didn’t. She looked at the Eastern Dark, at the figure from the darkest and most bitter stories from her youth. She saw nothing. No swirling shadows or dripping red aura. No cloak of purple fire nor leering form that was his true face. Just a man, and no tether to mark his life.
“It’s good to see your face again,” he said, his eyes showing the first flash of intent as they fixed on Pevah. “It’s good to see those claws and teeth. You really should take back your old name. The new one doesn’t suit you.”
“Yours fits just fine,” Pevah said.
The nomads took it as some unspoken sign, two of them shooting forward fast enough to startle those who weren’t prepared. Iyana thought to cry out. She’d seen the Eastern Dark’s eyes widen as they started into motion, but there was no need. They hadn’t gone two steps before they stopped—not of their own volition, but that of the man they leapt forward to defend.
Pevah held one hand out and the air went milky around them. They were caught mid-stride, and even another blast of humid battle-air did nothing to disturb the sashes they wore or the hair that was bound back in tails of black and yellow.
“Ah,” the Eastern Dark said, as if Pevah had just revealed some secret truth he’d known already, or at least had guessed. “You care for them even now. Even when their veins have gone cold. No more fire in the deserts. No more fire in them.”
“That was never why I protected them,” Pevah said, and the Eastern Dark switched his gaze to the Valley soldiers.
“Then why did you?” he asked, not taking his eyes from Jes, Mial and the rest. “Boredom, perhaps? Or—”
The arrow struck him full in the chest with a crunch, the point coming out the other end. Iyana gasped along with the others and Pevah released the time he’d stopped, the two nomads dropping to their hands and knees, panting with exhaustion and the imagined exertion of their captivity.
“No!” Pevah whirled on the Valley archer—Nica—who stared at him with a smug look Iyana couldn’t quite fault him for. She looked from him past Pevah and saw the Eastern Dark looking down at the feathered shaft with a considered expression. He should have fallen over. He should have croaked and gurgled and choked out the last of his life in the sand. The shaft had flown straight and been aimed well. If a heart beat in that ancient chest, it couldn’t now.
The Eastern Dark raised his left hand by aching degrees. He broke the shaft at the point of entry, and while the front of his cloak was stained, it was not a large stain. He yanked at the point from behind and held it up before him, the silver tip dyed red with blood. A good thing to know, but one that did them little good now and did nothing to supplant the horror at seeing a thing live that should be dead.
When the Sage looked up, his eyes met Nica’s. There was no real anger in the look, but Iyana felt it as a passing thing that shot with as much force as the arrow that had caused it. Now she heard the choking she had expected. She turned and saw Nica’s smug look change to one that betrayed his youth and folly all at once. He grasped at his leather just over the heart and stumbled. A bright trickle of blood spilled from his mouth, and his confusion turned to fear as he went ashen. He waved as if shooing flies and fell back, soundless. Iyana rushed to his side.
She placed her hands over his chest and spilled in the greenfire. Normally, she felt either a pull or a push: a pull when the body sought to heal and a push when it had had enough and been filled to the brim—usually the work of infection. Now, she felt nothing. Nica was dead before he hit the ground. It was as if he had been struck more than a minute before. As if he had been struck when he’d first sent the shaft at the Sage, and was only now remembering it.
Iyana ceased her efforts and looked through the Valley soldiers who stared with mouths agape. She focused on the Eastern Dark, who had already forgotten them, and wondered if he had some control of time as well. But no; nothing had changed. There had been none of the haze or strange feeling as when Pevah brought his power to bear. He had only plucked the arrow from his chest and look at Nica, and in the looking, it seemed what should have been done to him had not and had instead been turned around.
But there had been something else. Iyana was walking between this place and the other, and so her Sight was more. She tried to push aside the panic and the anger that rose from the rest like hissing snakes or fire on thatch and navigated the backs of heads and profiles until she saw one looking back her way. Sen gave her the slightest of nods. He had seen the same.
Iyana stood and balled her fists. She peered at the Sage on the rise with renewed interest, and not just because he had killed one of her own. She looked at the air above him, the place where she had seen a momentary flicker of light as the arrow had struck. There had been flecks of black in it, like Pevah’s. She could see the latter’s now, swishing like the tails of the foxes of the west, orange as the fur that rose in hackles along his back.
He had a tether. She had seen. He had a tether, which meant he could be killed, contrary to whatever strange magic she had just witnessed.
“Now,” the Eastern Dark took a step forward and Pevah let out a growl that some of the nomads matched—some of the Valley soldiers Iyana had known for weeks and had never known to make the sound. “They have seen my trick, Pevah.” He stopped midway down the rise, the sands shifting underfoot, the smooth white rivers reflecting the lavender fire raging behind them that must have been winning out over Creyath’s.
He spread his arms out wide—or at least the left. The right he kept at his hip, palm turned out, unmoving and rigid. “Fox of the West,” he said. “The Red Waste,” he intoned. “Pevah,” he mocked, letting that one linger. “You have a choice before you.” Another step forward. “You can die now,” a tilt of the head, “or you can die in a matter of moments, as long as it takes us to deal with that beast over there and come back around to your reckoning.”
Now it was Pev
ah who laughed, though Iyana did not like the desperation in the sound.
“The only reckoning we’ll have today is yours,” Pevah said. He spread his feet wide, and all pretense of mirth or charm dropped from the faces of both men. The red- and gray-sashes and the Valley soldiers and the Faeykin who should not have been so far from the south ringed them, unsure what to do but sure to do something.
Iyana found her eyes drawn back to that other hand, and saw that Pevah’s gaze was aimed at the same. It was still, but she thought she saw a faint buzzing at the edges, like the lines of one finger bled into the next.
“You’ve still been digging,” Pevah said, nodding toward the limb. “You’ve hurt yourself. Sifting through dangerous waters is bound to get you bitten.”
The Eastern Dark did not refute the claim, only continued to stare, waiting for Pevah to make the choice he already had. His eyes would flick away from his one-time brother and now enemy, but not to the warriors ringing him nor the Faeykin among them. They were far beneath his attention and even further beneath his concern. No, those eyes kept shifting to the west, toward the black and purple and red chaos the field of white sand had become, and Iyana saw a glimpse of the fascination that must have drawn him toward the World Apart in the first place.
The same fascination that the other Sages had shared, at least in part. The same that had doomed her people to fend off the creatures of nightmare and whose brightest stars—the Embers—were just another obsession of the Sage that had started it all. His champions of fire meant to correct his greatest mistake, or else to save him from it.
Iyana wished Kole were here to burn him away. She’d just have to take as clear a picture of his fall as she could. She waited amid shifting boots and panting blades eager to be let loose on a being far beyond them, even as the smaller voice at the back of her mind grew louder.
The voice that said they were fools to try.
At first Talmir thought it was the crack of ozone and peal of rolling thunder; a crack loud enough to split his ears and a roll long enough to send ripples through the threadbare cloud cover overhead. It was loud enough to make his bones rattle and his pounding head quiet, and he stopped running and saw Karin do the same up ahead.
The Midnight Dunes (The Landkist Saga Book 3) Page 47
