“But what of your adventures?” Brand asked more brightly, changing the subject. “You've grown much since last I saw you.”
“Grown?” she asked. “In only a week?”
“Aye, you may not be a hair taller, but you've grown much indeed.” He reached out and touched her robes. The old blue skyrider's robes were covered with tiny roots, as if seeds had sprouted in the wet fabric. Indeed, one could hardly see a trace of the blue wool anymore. The roots were twining together, forming a solid new fabric. It would be her wizard's robe, the garment that, as an Earth Warden, would hide her and protect her from dangers.
“Yes,” Averan said. “I guess I have grown.” She felt sad when she said it. She hadn't grown taller, but she felt a thousand years old. She'd seen too many innocent people die in the battles at Carris and Feldonshire. She'd seen more wonders and horrors in a week than she should have seen in a lifetime. And all of it had transformed her, awakened the green earth blood that flowed through her veins. She was no longer human. She was a wizardess with powers that mystified her as much as they did those around her.
Brand smiled broadly and said in a husky voice, “I'm so happy….” He clasped her around the neck and just held her for a moment.
Then he pulled back, and his face became all business again. “So, you're going into the Underworld, are you?” Averan nodded. Brand seemed to be studying her. He continued, “I'd come with you, if I couldt But I'm afraid that with naught but one arm, I'd be of no use. Sure, I can carry a pack full of food as well as the next man, but… “
“It's all right,” Averan said.
“The thing is,” Brand said, “there are other ways that I can help. I'm a strong man, Averan, always have been. I want you to have my strength.”
Averan swallowed hard and blinked back a tear. “You want to be my Dedicate?”
“Not just me,” Brand said. He nodded toward some of the local woodsmen sitting in the cave. “Lots of us would give anything to help—anything. We might not be worthy to march beside folks like you and Gaborn as Runelords, but we will do what we can. The king's facilitators has brought hundreds of forcibles!”
“I don't want to hurt you,” Averan said. “What if you died, trying to give me your strength?”
“I think that I would die of a broken heart if you didn't take it, and that would be worse….”
“I couldn't bear it,” Averan said. “I couldn't bear the thought of finding you now just to lose you again.”
“If you won't take an endowment from me,” Brand warned, “I'll give it to someone else.”
Averan wanted to argue, but at that moment a facilitator hurried from the back of the cave. “Averan,” he called. He wore black pants and a black half cloak, with the silver chains of his office upon his neck. As she got up, Averan looked down sadly at Brand, and stumbled through the crowd. She followed the facilitator's billowing black robes into the recesses of the cave. He said, “His Highness has sought a great many endowments for you, child. Twenty endowments of scent from dogs we found, and twenty of stamina, eight each of grace and brawn, twelve of metabolism, ten each of sight and hearing, five of touch.”
Averan's head spun at the news, at the sacrifices others would have to make. She'd leave dozens of people blind, mute, or otherwise deprived of vital powers.
Perhaps as horrific would be the changes that the endowments wrought upon her. With twelve endowments of metabolism, she'd be able to move faster than others, to run fifty miles in an hour, though to her it would only seem that time had slowed. Each day she would age nearly two weeks. Each year, her body would be more than a dozen years older. In a decade, she would be an old, old woman, if she lived at all.
He led Averan to a corner back in the cave where a dozen potential Dedicates squatted. The facilitator had seven forcibles—small branding irons made of blood metal—laid out on a satin pillow. His apprentices already had a girl on her back and were coaxing the sight from her. She seemed a small thing, not much older than Averan. She had kinky blond hair, a thin face. Beads of sweat were breaking on her brow. One apprentice sang in a piping voice and held the forcible to her arm while the other whispered words of encouragement. “Here she comes now,” the facilitator's apprentice whispered in an urgent voice, “the hope of mankind, she who must guide our lord through the Underworld, through the dark places. It is your sight that will let her see, your sacrifice that will give us hope of success.”
Hope of success? Averan wondered. The task ahead seemed daunting. The paths through the Underworld were as tangled as a massive ball of yarn. And what could she do when she reached her destination? Kill the lord of the Underworld?
I'm not ready for this, Averan thought desperately.
But the facilitator's apprentice kept it up, this litany, and the girl stared at Averan with pleading eyes. “Save me,” she mouthed to Averan. “Save us all”
I'm the last thing she will ever see, Averan realized. And with her gift, my eyes will pierce the deep shadows. I shall be able to count the veins in the wings of a moth at a dozen paces.
Averan went forward timidly, and took the girl's hand. “Thank you,” Averan said. “I'll do… everything that I can.”
At that, the forcible blazed white hot, and the girl screamed in pain. Her pupils seemed to shrivel like prunes and go white before her eyes rolled back in her head. The girl fell backward, dazed with pain, and the facilitator's apprentice pulled the forcible away. A white puckering scar showed the rune for sight branded on her arm.
The facilitator's apprentice waved the glowing tip of the forcible in the air experimentally. It left a white trail, like living fire, snaking in its wake. Yet the trail remained hanging in the air long after the forcible had passed. He studied the glow, the width and breadth of it, and then looked to the master facilitator for approval.
“Well done,” the facilitator said. “Continue.”
The apprentice reached down to Averan and slid the sleeve of her robe up, revealing the scars from endowments taken in the past. With all of her former Dedicates dead, the scars had all gone gray.
The facilitator's apprentice once again began his birdlike singing and pressed the forcible to Averan's flesh. The glowing white trail broke off at the Dedicate's arm, and flowed into Averan. As it did, the blood metal flared white, and then dissolved into dust.
Averan felt the indescribable ecstasy that comes from taking an endowment, and as the endowments of sight flowed into her, it seemed as if the dingy cave exploded into brightness.
After that nothing would ever look the same again.
2
A LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE
By the love that binds us both together—
I vow to be for you a light in dark places,
and give you hope when hope runs dry,
to be your fortress in the mountains,
when your enemies draw nigh….
—from lomes wedding vow
A whooshing sound swept through the Mouth of the World, like the sound of wings, and the huge bonfire snuffed out. Iome glanced up. The Wizard Binnesman stood where the bonfire had been. He had just made a fold of ground rise up and surge like a wave to smother the flames.
Now he held his staff up, and a swarm of fireflies circled it, so that he stood in a haze of green light. Earth blood flowed in his veins, so that he had a green cast to his skin, and even the autumn colors of his robes held some of that hue, so that in this light he looked strange and unearthly. Iome imagined that he glowed like a Bright One, straight from old stories of the netherworld.
“Gentlemen, ladies, may I have your ears?” Binnesman asked loudly. “The time is at hand that we must prepare for battle. Let nothing that you hear this morning be spoken by daylight or before an open fire, for some pyromancers can overhear your words in the sizzle and pop of the flames.”
With that, he glanced at Gaborn for a moment. “Your Highness… “Binnesman said.
Iome felt a thrill of anticipation. She had been waiting all n
ight to hear Gaborn's plans. Yesterday she had begged to accompany Gaborn to the Underworld, and he had made no promises, only said, “I will think upon it.”
A hush fell over the crowd. Everyone drew close. Someone called out, “We're with you, milord!” Shouts and war cries rose from all about.
Gaborn raised his hands and begged the men for silence.
“Over the past day,” he began, “many of you have asked to come with me to the Underworld: High Marshal Chondler,” he nodded with deference to Chondler, “Sir Langley of Orwynne, Sir Ryan McKim of Fleeds.” He hesitated as he gave appreciative looks to each of these warriors. “And your great hearts are borne out by greater deeds. Each of you is more than worthy to follow me. But my mind has been much occupied on thoughts of how I can save my people, and I have had to make some hard choices….”
At that, the strong lords around Gaborn all stood tall and proud, eager to hear whom he would choose as companions.
Gaborn gazed out over them, and in the darkness his pupils had widened enormously, so that almost the whole whites of his eyes seemed to have faded. By this, Iome knew that he had already taken several endowments of sight, so that he might better see in the Underworld.
“Those who will follow me,” Gaborn said with finality, “will be three: the wizard Binnesman, his wylde, and the child Averan.”
A gasp of dismay swept through the crowd, and Iome choked out a sob. She felt sick. She had hoped to accompany Gaborn, and had dared to imagine an army at her back with a few hundred warriors at the very least.
Several lords grumbled openly and looked as if they would march into the Underworld against Gaborn's orders.
Sir Ryan McKim of Fleeds shouted at the lords, “Shut yer yaps, all of you, or it's a few loose teeth I'll be giving you! If this man were but a common king, you'd show him better respect. How much more should we honor the counsel of Earth King?”
Gaborn smiled in gratitude at Sir McKim, and said, “It is not by force of arms that we will win our way to the throne of the fell queen. Binnesman, Averan, and I are all under the protection of the Earth. I suspect that that alone can help us win our way into the Underworld. And though I would gladly take an army at my back, I believe all would die.”
Iome saw his look falter then. Gaborn's face seemed pale, as if he stared death in the face, and she suspected that the struggle to come might be grim indeed.
“Your Highness,” High Marshal Chondler reminded Gaborn, “yesterday you mentioned that the fate of the world hangs in the balance with this upcoming battle. If we do not kill the reavers—”
“We're not out to kill reavers—” the Wizard Binnesman objected. “That was never my intent. The Earth is wounded with a sore wound, and deep. We must heal its wounds if we can. I suspect that in order to do so, we will have to destroy the three runes and their author. We may only need to kill one reaver….”
“Aye,” Chondler argued, “you've got to kill one reaver, but doubtless you'll have to face thousands more to win your way into her lair. No one has ever gone so deep into the Underworld. If my guess is right, this is an old nest, in the farthest depths of the earth. I myself have risked a journey into the Underworld on two occasions, but only on a dare, and never have I gone so far.” He swallowed, looked around the tunnel, and the warriors all fell silent as he spoke. With the fire gone from the cave, the night grew dark and deep. The starlight outside could hardly lend more than shadows to a man's face. “Our forefathers used to hunt reavers down there, far below. Mostly they didn't dare the deep lairs—where the ground gets hot to the touch and the air is so thick you could cut it with a knife. The old books call it the Unbounded Warren, for the tunnels go on forever, and every reaver lair is like a hive, with hundreds or thousands of warriors to guard its nests.”
Averan shouted, “Yes, but the great seals aren't near the nest! They're near the Lair of Bones.”
“So,” High Marshal Chondler said, “you'll be going as assassins, not as an army. Still, Your Highness, I respectfully submit that I or Langley might be of great help on such a quest….”
Gaborn gazed evenly at Chondler for a moment, then his eyes flickered around the cavern. “There are great deeds to be done,” Gaborn said, “more deeds than men to do them. Indeed, in the battles to come, each of you must play a hero's part. I sense danger closing from every side.”
He gazed down at the floor and peered as if into the depths of the earth. Beads of sweat stood up on his brow. “The first enemy to strike will be in Heredon, a thousand miles north of here, in two nights’ time. Even if I could send an army to Heredon's aid, it would not help. The Earth bids me to warn the people there to hide—to seek shelter underground.”
Murmurs of wonder rose from the crowd, for Gaborn gave curious counsel indeed. “Hide beneath the ground, like a mole?” someone blurted. Strange though it sounded, the counsel of an Earth King could not be ignored.
“At dusk the evening after that,” Gaborn continued, “war will begin to break out close to home. If it's battle your stomach wants,” Gaborn said, “you shall have your fill…and more. For war is coming, war with a foe who will not spare women or children.”
At this Gaborn leapt up on a huge rock, so that he could see above the crowd, and shouted, “Send messengers throughout all Mystarria: tell all those who can to gather at Carris. I need every man who can stand upright, every woman who can hold a bow, every child over the age of ten who is willing to stare death in the face. I need them all to gather on the castle walls.
“At sunset, three nights hence, steel your hearts and sound the horns of war. You are to strike, and strike relentlessly. Our enemies will show no mercy and give no quarter, and if we fail, the end of mankind may well be upon us!”
Lowicker shouted, “You mean to send women and children into battle? Will you be there to lead us?”
“By the Seven Stones, I hope so,” Gaborn answered, but Iome saw the worry in his eyes deepen, and knew that he doubted his own strength.
Gaborn gazed out on the assembled lords. Men from a dozen nations gathered around him. “Sir Langley, take the fastest horse that you can find, and fly for your homeland at Orwynne. Bring every lord who will follow you back to Carris. You must reach it by sunset in three days’ time.”
“Aye,” Langley said. With half a dozen endowments of metabolism, he could easily run fifty miles per hour. Langley had hardly agreed when he spun on his heel and fled.
“High Marshal Chondler, you want a great task, and I will give it to you: I ask that you begin fortifying Carris. Do not worry about gathering sup-plies, for you will not need more than the castle has to offer. If you do not win this battle, all is lost.”
“By the Powers!” Chondler swore. It would have been a daunting task in any case, since the reavers had destroyed the castle walls. But Gaborn put the weight of the world upon the man's shoulders.
“And what of me?” Iome asked.
Gaborn looked at her sadly, as if he feared to break her heart. “If Carris falls, I will need someone to lead our people to safety.”
“I'm a Runelord,” Iome said, “and by right should fight at Carris. Indeed, should I not be in command?”
“I considered having you hold Carris,” Gaborn said. “You were the last to leave Castle Sylvarresta, and no one cares for her people more than you. But Chondler is the better leader for Carris.”
She knew that he sought an excuse to send her somewhere far away, out of danger.
“I swore on our wedding day to be a light for you in dark places,'” Iome said. “And there is nowhere darker than where you are going. Let me come. I will do all that I can to ease your journey.”
Gaborn shook his head sadly. “You don't understand. It's not safe.”
The way that he said it, Iome suspected that Gaborn feared not only for her but for his own life. Her heart pounded. She dared not argue with him further in front of his own men.
Chondler called to several Knights Equitable, and the men began to hurry away,
grabbing arms and packs. The place suddenly became a madhouse.
With the members of the band selected, Gaborn quickly began choosing weapons. Averan, Binnesman, and the green woman each had their wizard's staves, and would not want to be encumbered with other arms. Gaborn had his customary horseman's warhammer, the long-handled weapon favored in Mystarria. He also bore a saber as a matter of habit. But neither weapon was well suited for fighting reavers in their lair. The warhammer posed a danger to anyone who might be standing too close when he swung it in combat. And Gaborn's saber would probably snap the first time it struck reaver hide.
So Gaborn studied some weapons that Marshal Chondler's men had retrieved from Castle Arrowshire for just this purpose, and now laid on the ground before him: reaver darts. These were heavy spears made of solid iron, much like a javelin in shape, but longer. Each dart, some eight feet in length, was pointed at each end and tipped with diamond so that it might better pierce reaver hide. Around the iron shaft a grip had been wrapped, made of rough cowhide.
It was an ancient weapon, rarely used over the past thousand years. It looked overly heavy, but with endowments of brawn the dart would be as light as a willow wand in his hand. Still, its very bulk made it clumsy, inelegant.
So what am I to do while Gaborn is out saving the world? Iome wondered. He had already rejected her plea to go with him, and she doubted that he would be easily persuaded. She carried his child, after all, and he would not subject the child to danger.
And Gaborn was afraid not just for her but for himself.
There are things I can do to help, Iome thought, even if he doesn't let me come, things that Gaborn would never do in his own behalf.
Iome had always been more pragmatic than Gaborn. She admired his virtue, his refined sensibilities. She loved him for his gentleness.
But there comes a time when we must no longer be gentle, she told herself.
Iome went back into the tunnel, past the smoldering campfire into the deep shadows where a pair of facilitators were transferring endowments to Averan. Half a dozen Dedicates lay about the girl, like spent sacrifices.
The Lair of Bones Page 4
