The refetti wiggled its nose at him.
The animal’s sense of smell was bound to be keener than his. Lance dug out a small length of darning yarn from his bag and put a loose loop around the refetti’s chest. “Go,” he said, feeling a little foolish. “Find Sara.”
The refetti dashed down the path, taking the next right, then three lefts in a row, and there was Sara.
Despite the damp ground, she was sitting down, her head cradled in her hands. The refetti circled her in excitement. A few feet away, Lance saw the ivory gleam of a skull peeking out of the soil.
Lance waited until he was close enough to grab her before speaking again. “Sara?”
Her head came up. Dull misery clouded her eyes, but she didn’t flee.
“What’s wrong?” Lance asked, his voice rough. “Why did you run away?”
“I don’t want to go to the Hall.” She began to mumble. “Terrible things will happen if I go. Don’t make me. Please, don’t make me.”
Lance tried to reason with her. “The Hall will have shelter, a warm bed and a hot meal. At the very least, some place dark and quiet where you can sleep.”
Tears began to drip down her cheeks. “No. He’ll lock me up.”
“Who? My father?” Lance asked, bewildered. “No, he won’t. He has power, but he doesn’t abuse it.”
When Sara spoke again, she was incoherent. Something bad was going to happen. She’d be locked up forever. She didn’t want to go.
Impatient, frantic and feeling like a brute for insisting that they continue, Lance finally grabbed her hand to pull her to her feet—
Loma’s healing grace filled him.
But the etched lines of misery on Sara’s face eased only a fraction. The Goddess was as helpless as he was. It was almost as if something was injuring her right now…
“Come on,” he said as gently as he could. He took her hand and pulled her up. She followed, but walked with her eyes closed.
Lance chose their path through the fog and forest at random, going left, then right, then right again. The maze had no pattern. The important thing was to keep going forward, not to doubt yourself and turn back. That and to stay calm. Anger made the fog thicken.
And apparently so did fear, because Lance had to work to calm himself down before the curtains of mist finally deigned to part and reveal the Hall.
* * *
Someone gently shook Sara’s shoulder, intruding into her silent universe of pain. “We’re here,” Lance said.
They were? The journey seemed to have taken years, but Sara felt no relief at its end. She could not believe in a cure. She had always had a headache and always would.
She refused to open her eyes—until she heard a small yip. She turned her head in time to see her refetti free itself from the yarn around its middle and scurry through the grass, making a beeline toward the Hall.
She took one step in chase; her elbow jerked free of Lance’s grip. Pain slammed through her head like a lightning bolt. She screamed. A sun flared behind her eyes…
Lance caught her arm when she would have fallen. The terrible brightness retreated, but not very far, lying in wait.
* * *
Esam tore himself free from the Defiled One. He flung himself forward, but his steps slowed as the voices of the dead clamored protests in his ears.
His human mind knew he must hurry or another massacre would occur, but the voices shredded his reason, driving his refetti self mad. He forced himself to take four more quick steps forward, then shuddered to a stop, battered by the increasing wails.
A chance yet remained to avert the coming catastrophe. The Giant had claimed that his father could speak to animals. If he could just get there ahead of the Defiled One…but it was no use. He lacked the strength to go on.
For the first time, he wished he had done as his father asked and followed the Path farther himself. He would happily endure the life of a Scholar to not be so helpless now.
Esam closed his eyes, mouth moving in fervent prayer as he struggled forward a few more steps.
Holy Ones, I pledge myself to follow the Path, if you will but help me.
Either they heard him or his next step gained him enough distance because the voices of the dead faded, along with the compulsion to return to the Defiled One’s side. Freed, he scampered across the courtyard as fast as his paws could carry him.
His refetti eyes saw a sheer cliff rising up from the ground, but the human portion of his mind knew it for a building. He spied a small gap at the base and squeezed under the door, leaving a chunk of his fur behind. He whipped down a hallway.
The floor felt strange under his paws. It had the color and vertical grains of wood, but didn’t smell right. It was hard as stone and glass smooth. He skidded while turning into a huge, echoing room.
He smelled humans and cried, “Help me!”
It was easy to identify the one who spoke to animals, the Giant’s father, for he replied. “Who asks for my help?”
Esam could have wept—to be understood at last!—but refetties had no tears. “I ask, Esam, Warrior of the Qiph. I am trapped in this body. The Defiled One is coming! I have no time to explain.”
“Try, little one.”
Esam rushed into speech. “A dark ritual was performed last moon that raised immense power. Though it took place in the Republic, the Pathfinders of my land sensed it. They sent a group across the border to investigate and found the scene of an unholy massacre. The Pathfinders changed me into a refetti so that I might track down the one responsible. The voices of the dead led me to the Defiled One, but—”
“Defiled by what?” the man asked.
Esam told him. “You must kill her,” he finished. “Then you must use the Soul Box your son carries.”
The man listened attentively then turned to the woman by his side. “My dear, a blue devil approaches.” He paused. “I may have to use my Lifegift.”
The woman vibrated with tension. “I will protect you with my life.”
“Of course.” He smiled gently. “But we have some time. Clear as many people from the Hall as you can.”
She nodded once, kissed him fiercely, then strode from the room. “I’ll make all ready.”
Esam was agitated. The Giant’s father had not understood. The Defiled One would be here in only moments.
The man stooped down and held out his stump. “Come here, little one.”
Esam scrambled up onto his shoulder. “There’s no time!”
“Shh.” A wrist stroked his fur. “I had to lie,” the man said softly. “She would never leave me otherwise.”
* * *
Shuffling like an old woman, Sara approached the Hall.
Set into a notch in the hillside, the Hall was almost invisible from a distance. Up close it proved to be a hodgepodge with extra rooms added here and there to the main hall, often at angles. One tower had a domed roof.
The main door stood at the top of six steps. The fortyish man standing guard recognized Lance. “You’re expected,” he said. “I have a message from your father.”
The guard pulled Lance aside, and Sara leaned heavily against the wall, bereft of the Goddess’s touch.
The message seemed to perplex Lance. Through Sara’s pain she heard random snippets of their conversation. “…box? …does he want?”
“…don’t know,” the guard replied.
“Well, I’m not leaving her here out in the cold,” Lance said sharply. “Help me get her inside. She’s very ill.”
“No.” Sara’s throat felt dry and disused. “I can walk. There’s nothing wrong with my legs.” It was only her head that felt like an olive in an oil press.
She represented the Republic of Temboria and House Remillus. Pride demanded that she meet the Kandrith standing on her own two feet, not clinging to his son’s hand. Sara couldn’t think just now why pride was so important, but it was. Thinking hurt. She started to walk instead. Lance hovered at her elbow.
They attracted attention a
s they moved along. Servants carrying bundles paused, then hurried outside, giving her a wide berth. A mother snatched her child back and whisked through a different door. Sara ignored them all. The blinding pain didn’t leave room for anything but sickness.
Sara’s gaze fixed on the floor. After a dozen steps, Lance stopped her. “Wait here, Sara.” He entered a doorway.
Sara’s head swam. Nausea crawled up her throat. Her skin felt clammy, and her legs trembled.
If she waited another second, she would collapse. Surely Lance had had enough time to greet his father by now? She groped her way through the doorway and into the audience hall.
The brightness behind her eyes returned, making it hard for Sara to focus or hear. The room and its occupants seemed weirdly distorted.
Lance stood a few feet away, gesturing urgently. Weapons covered the walls. She saw two thrones, one empty. But all that was gray, indistinct, mere background. A man robed in red snared her attention.
Red is the color of Heart’s Blood.
He sat on a carved wooden throne. He must be Lance’s father. The Kandrith looked old, much older than her own father, so old he should have been a corpse. He had no hands. She glimpsed stumps under his long sleeves, and he was as bald as an egg.
Sara heard snatches of Lance’s voice, as if from down a long tunnel. “Father—this is Sara.” The room spun. “—sick—can’t cure.”
The old man—Lance’s grandfather, surely?—stood up. How odd. Her refetti sat on his shoulder.
“You might as well come out,” the Kandrith said. He seemed to be talking to her, but she could make no sense of his words. “I can see you quite clearly. And I don’t imagine you came here to hide.”
I don’t know what you mean, Sara wanted to say, but a sudden surge of nausea bent her over double. She vomited black, blackest bile.
The brightness behind her eyes exploded.
Chapter Sixteen
Lance sprinted forward as Sara collapsed, even though his healing powers had been inadequate so far. She’d probably lost consciousness from the pain, but if a blood vessel had burst he had only moments—
Something unseen knocked him off his feet. His head hit the floor, hard.
When he got back onto his hands and knees, his father was standing over Sara, blind eyes staring off into nothingness. “I see you!”
Who was he looking at? Who had hit Lance?
“I see you and name you—blue devil.”
Lacking the Watcher’s gift, the only living thing Lance saw was the refetti burrowing into his bag, but he sensed the blue devil, like a malignant cloud. How had a blue devil gotten here? Lance’s stunned shock lasted only a moment and then he knew. Sara had carried it inside her.
He’d thought her merely a spy for her father, but this… Her betrayal knifed through him. For the Child of Peace to be used in an act of war was obscene. How could Sara have lent herself to this? How could he have been so wrong about her?
He should have known when the Qiph called her Defiled, when the Watcher said her soul was purple. Realization bit in. He had brought Sara here, to his father. Exactly as the blue devil wanted.
Goddess forgive me.
Wind howled through the room, flattening Lance against the cold, slick floor. The wood had been petrified into stone by some long ago saint’s sacrifice to prevent the Hall from being burned down.
An eerie jangle ran through the swords, axes and spears lining the walls as the wind lifted them.
His father staggered, then held up a stump, and the wind parted before him. “Goddess!” he cried.
Lance knew how this would—must—end. His heart grieved.
“I gift my life—”
Before his father could finish, a spear from the wall flew through the air and impaled him in the back. The black point emerged from his stomach.
The pain must have been horrendous, but Lance’s father smiled and finished his invocation, “—to kill you.”
Lance waited, breathless, still pinned to the floor.
The wind faltered—then blasted forth again even harder. Mocking laughter echoed through the throne room. “I’ve given you a mortal wound. The few hours that remain of your life aren’t a great enough sacrifice to kill me.”
A pool of blood spread from his father’s stomach. Lance knew stomach wounds. He would likely linger, in great pain, for hours.
Lance crawled forward, keeping his head down so that the wind buffeted over him. If he could reach his father, heal him—his father would still die, but he could gift his life to a purpose and fulfill his oath as Kandrith.
“Once you’re gone, I will rule here,” the blue devil gloated. “None shall stand against me, and the rivers will run red with blood sacrifices to my god—”
Lance closed his mind to the picture the blue devil painted. Hold on, Father, I’m coming. He had to fight for every inch, and sweat poured from his body, but he was winning.
He stretched forth his hand. If he could touch so much as his father’s ankle, he could—
Lance slid backward along the floor as if pulled by a giant hand. Cruel laughter split the air as he slammed into the wall. The blue devil had waited to strike just to torture him with hope.
“Goddess,” his father whispered.
Lance was surprised he could speak. Anyone else would have been whimpering.
“The twotch can’t help you now,” the blue devil sneered. “No one can.’
His father continued serenely, “I gift my life to—”
“You already tried that, old man, and it didn’t work.”
The words grew fainter. “—to banish you from—”
“What?” the blue devil roared, noting the change in wording.
“—my kingdom.”
A clap of thunder, and the wind vanished, the blue devil seemingly sucked away with it.
Lance lifted his head cautiously, but the air felt cleaner, with the distinctive taste of spring that spoke of the Goddess’s presence.
The blue devil was exiled. His father lay unmoving, his long death, started the day he took oath to become Kandrith, finally over.
* * *
Sara woke up in a wonderful mood. She lay in a warm, soft bed, and her headache was gone. Her head felt light.
The Kandrith must have cured her, just as Lance had believed. Sara had a fleeting memory of seeing the Kandrith and throwing up at his feet, but shoved the thought aside with the bedclothes.
She looked around with curious eyes. The bedroom was…peculiar. The bed sat alone, an island in a large room. The walls were bare of tapestries, and the only light came from a narrow window far above her head.
Where were the washbasin, soap and towel? Her possessions? It didn’t resemble a bedroom so much as a tower cell.
Uneasy, Sara crossed over to the door—and found it had no doorknob. Nor did it open when she pushed.
Well. There was no mistaking that, was there? Lance had promised her this wouldn’t happen. But Lance wasn’t the Kandrith; his father was. Lance had accepted her spying and merely tried to stop her from passing on the information she’d gathered, but his father might feel differently. Might have ordered her to be locked up.
Staring at the door wouldn’t get her any answers. Sara knocked firmly on the wood. “Hello?”
“What do you want?” a man asked.
Sara wanted out, but knew better than to ask. “I’d like to speak to Lance, the King—I mean the Kandrith’s son. Perhaps he could join me for breakfast.” If it was morning and not afternoon. She had no idea how long she’d slept.
“We know who he is,” the man growled. “And you’re the last person he wants to talk to right now.”
“What do you mean?” Sara demanded, but the guard said no more.
Her stomach tightened. She tried to convince herself Lance was unavailable because he’d been called away on some healing emergency, or was simply enjoying a reunion with his parents, but she couldn’t make herself believe it.
What h
ad gone wrong? Sara hadn’t worn anything blue or done anything to offend the Kandrith—
Except vomit at his feet. But he’d gone on to cure her headache, so surely he didn’t bear a grudge?
Had something changed on the political landscape? Had General Pallax forced the Senate to name a new Primus at sword-point? Was her father in hiding? Dead?
The door opened without warning a bleak time later, and two guards came in. Both men had black beards and wore red vests, though they didn’t look alike otherwise. One was in his early twenties, the other closer to forty. Hostility burned in their dark eyes.
Just so had Rowena looked at Sara—and her blue eyes. Relief warred with irritation. “I’m not a blue devil,” she said.
The younger guard jerked, and she realized he was afraid of her, that he was close to drawing his sword and— What? Surely he wouldn’t dare hurt the Child of Peace? Sara stayed very still.
“Up,” the older man growled. “You’re to come with us.”
As much as Sara felt confined by the room, she was now reluctant to leave it. “Where are you taking me?”
“The Protector wants to see you.” The younger guard’s brown eyes glittered cruelly. “It’s time for your trial.”
* * *
“In here.”
The younger guard shoved Sara through a doorway and into what was obviously the throne room. Was this where she’d met the Kandrith? Sara couldn’t remember.
It wasn’t a pretty room. Weapons rather than tapestries or stone carvings covered its walls. The walls and floors were of polished gray wood, not the white marble so favored in the Republic. But for all its starkness, it still served a throne room’s primary purpose: Sara felt small.
Sara straightened her shoulders, summoning cold anger to hide her fear. “I protest this treatment,” she said loudly. The bigger throne sat empty, so she aimed her words at the woman robed in deepest red occupying the secondary chair, who must be Lance’s mother.
The Protector sat very straight, hands clutching the arms of the chair, and stared at Sara. The handful of other people in the room—another guard, a pale-eyed man in silver robes, a plump old blind woman and her skinny husband—watched Sara, too, but the Protector’s gaze felt like a hot brand.
Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) Page 28
