Rehtse came up beside her. “Pray for the Healer, Rehtse,” Virginia said quietly. “No one else understands.”
* * *
Pat awakened on the shore. The sky was still dark, but it was a natural darkness now, though tinged with the residue of Blackness. Light seemed as though it was lingering just beyond the drizzle that still fell. The sea was no longer raging. She picked herself up slowly, her head splitting, sand clinging to every inch of her.
She was alone. She had not been able to find Huss after he disappeared beneath the waves.
The island before her was silent but for the caw of ravens, and Patricia Black, who preferred every emotion to sorrow, found herself walking toward the mountains as through a dream with tears in her eyes.
She turned to survey the sea once more. There was no sign of the boat, no sign of the Earth Brother who had raised his head in the last moments of the fight.
No sign of life.
She firmed her jaw and turned back inland. She could see the dark gash where the pass split through the mountains, and as she neared it she heard the ravens fighting. The mingled smells of blood and smoke, mud and metal, met her nose, and she winced and turned her eyes upward instead.
To climb the mountains would have meant nearly a sheer trek up the cliffs, so she wandered down the beach until she found a narrow ravine running inland, its entrance just above her. She grabbed a handful of roots in the sandy cliff side and climbed up, into the ravine and beyond it, higher till she reached the height of the mountain where the gorge cut through. She smelled blood and smoke before she reached the high battleground.
Her tears ceased simply to sting and began to run down her face in earnest. She passed over the bodies of the young clann members, not pausing, not counting, not wanting to see their faces. Other bodies lay on the ground as well, the grotesque corpses of foul creatures. But they were few.
A tremendous stench met her as she reached the downward slope of the mountain where hundreds of black carcasses lay heaped and strewn. The ground was streaked with gold as though veins of it had been uncovered in the fight. Patches of scorched earth and vegetation varied with deep mud and bloody pools.
Pat bowed her head.
A breeze blew, and in it she heard a human moan.
She whipped her head around and stared back up the hill, her forehead creased. No sound followed, yet she was certain she had heard it, and she sprinted up the hill toward the place from whence it had come. A cascade of water was springing from an outcropping of rock, and it was toward this she headed. She nearly stumbled over another body, a young woman she recognized as Shannon, but beyond, in the mud and the wreckage of what had once been a small wooden tower by the water, she saw life.
She dropped to her knees beside Michael O’Roarke and rolled him onto his back. He groaned again, but his eyes focused on her with recognition. He was covered with mud, and he sucked in a breath as she touched his shoulder. She pulled her fingers back red with blood. A bandage over his arm and shoulder now was soaked not only with rain but with blood also.
His eyes were full of tears. “Did they—”
He gasped and tried to sit up, and instead of pushing him back down as was her first instinct, Pat helped him up. It was slowly sinking in that he could be the only other survivor—her only ally.
“Morning Star came after us,” Pat said. “They were taken. I don’t know what happened after that.”
Michael groaned. His eyes fell on the body beyond Pat and filled with pain that made her recoil.
“They fought bravely,” Pat said. “They all did. They did great damage to the enemy.”
Michael shook his head. “But all in vain,” he said. “We held the gorge in vain.”
“No,” Pat answered. “It’s not in vain while the world remains and Morning Star is not yet in power. The Gifted still live, even if they are in Morning Star’s grasp. We can help them.”
The clann chieftain, propped up on his good elbow and fighting to stay upright, looked her in the eye and asked, “How?”
Pat opened her mouth, but no words came out. She shook her head, standing slowly, and turned to look at the scene of battle. Words kept catching in her throat.
“We can… we can pray,” she said at last. She whirled back, eyes alight. “We’ll bring the King back ourselves.”
“We need the Gifted,” Michael said.
“No, we don’t,” Pat said. “The Gifted need him. We need him. The whole world needs him. And he’s coming back! Huss said so; everyone believed it, that’s why we’re here. Even Morning Star believes it, or he wouldn’t be trying so hard to capture the Gifted.”
She rushed forward and thrust her shoulder under Michael’s good arm, pushing him to his feet before he could protest. “I don’t know why you’re still alive,” she said, starting forward with Michael hobbling beside, “but I say we take every favour we can get.”
“You’d be better off leaving me behind,” Michael said. “I don’t know how far I can go.”
“I’m not leaving another person behind,” Pat said. “You know where another hidden ship is, don’t you? You had enough for your whole clann to escape.”
“There is another,” Michael said. They stopped while he fought for breath, and she saw the way he bent and tensed his whole body against the pain. His skin was pale beneath the mud; he had lost far too much blood. For a moment she wondered if she was being a fool to bring him with her.
But then, she was being a fool in every way, wasn’t she? The only thing she could think of doing that wouldn’t be foolish would be to lay down and die, and that was the one thing she wasn’t willing to do—not while Maggie was in Morning Star’s power and Mrs. Cook was trapped in Pravik, not while there was any hope.
“Good,” she said. “Show me the way.”
His eyes focused on something beyond her, and suddenly they filled with hope. She panicked. He was dying; he was reacting to something beyond life. But a shout from over her shoulder made her turn her head, and this time she almost dropped Michael as her own heart leaped.
Nicolas was vaulting up the mountainside toward them.
* * *
As the sun sank, they stood together in the quiet green of a hillside that had been untouched by the hordes. It took the Ploughman, Nicolas, Roland, Kieran, and a healed Michael hours to move the bodies and bury them in shallow graves, but the strange peace on that hillside, which had stayed green and beautiful so near so much destruction and horror, made it the only suitable place for burial.
A cool breeze was blowing as Rehtse walked slowly over the graves, chanting the ancient burial rites of the Darkworld. Michael and Miracle stood together with Kieran before them, each with a hand on his shoulder. Miracle was pale and weak; she had fully recovered from her own wounds, but healing those of others had demanded much from her since the day had begun. Michael was silent, his face betraying a loss too deep for words.
When Rehtse was finished, she returned to the little cluster of mourners, and Maggie stepped forward and sang a lament as the sun slipped the rest of the way over the horizon.
When she fell silent, Roland spoke. “Miracle asked why she could not heal the dead, if the power in her is the King’s power,” he said. “It is because we have only snatches. Our Gifts show who he is, but not in full measure. Healing is in Miracle, but life is in him—just as song is in Maggie, but all music is in him. The power to hear is in Nicolas, but the power to speak what is heard is in him.”
“How do you know?” Nicolas asked after a long pause.
Roland cleared his throat. He was looking at the graves, not at his fellow Gifted—with whom he hardly seemed to belong. “He told me,” he said.
“The King?” Maggie asked. “Is he coming back? Did he tell you that?”
“He is already here,” Roland said. Somehow his voice was unhappy. “He has been here for months. He has been living with me and I with him.”
There was shocked silence. Virginia said, “Roland told us
of his life in the last few months as we sailed here—carried by the Wind-Spirit Llycharath and the open arms of the Sea-Father, or we would never have made it to you in time. What he speaks is true, although we may not think ourselves ready to hear it.”
“But if the King has been here all this time,” Michael said slowly, “why did he not come here? Why would he ask us to take a stand as though he was still absent? Why did he not come and prevent this?”
“Or the overtaking of Pravik?” Nicolas asked. “Why hide in the Highlands all this time? And where is he now? Why did he not come with you?”
“He has gone to Pravik now,” Roland said. “He wants us to follow him.”
“If you have been with him for months,” Nicolas said, “why have you not declared him before this?”
“I did not know,” Roland said. He turned and met their eyes, one by one. “He was—he is—a child. I thought I was taking care of him. He talked crazy sometimes, about people and the past and powers beyond the sky, but I thought he was just a child. Just a little boy telling stories. I didn’t know until he opened my eyes. I didn’t even know that I was Gifted.”
“And what is your Gift, son?” the Ploughman asked.
Roland swallowed. “I am a Voice,” he said. “Stray—the King—told me things—and gave me a book of prophecy—and I can repeat them. That’s all. That, and I can tell you that he wants us to follow him together to Pravik.”
“And what will we find there?” Nicolas asked. His tone was bitter. “More death?”
“No,” Miracle said. “If we are truly following the King, then we will follow in the path of healing, and it is healing we will find—eventually.”
“But… a child?” the Ploughman asked.
It was Virginia who put their fears to rest, at least for the moment. “He may look like a child,” she said. “But in this world, very little is as it appears. We have all acted against sight before, haven’t we? We have all stood when appearances said we should fall. We will do it again.”
The others glanced at each other, and some nodded. “That is what it means to be faithful,” Rehtse said. “Is it not?”
“Michael, Miracle, I am sorry to tear you away,” Virginia said. “But we should not linger here. The Blackness will seek us out again, and next time it will not be as it was today. Something about our coming together struck at Morning Star as though the King himself had struck at him—had laughed at him. But it will not be so again.”
“There is another boat hidden on the beach,” Michael said. “One big enough for all of us. We will leave tonight—Miracle and Kieran and I too. There is nothing more to hold us here.” His eyes filled with tears once more as he spoke, and he lifted them to the mountains as though he beseeched someone there.
“There is one more we should mourn here,” Pat said. She had not spoken since Nicolas had discovered her and Michael on the mountainside. The others turned to look at her.
“Professor Huss,” she said. “I think he drowned.”
Quietly, Rehtse began to pray the rites once more. The others joined in this time, recognizing the phrases from the first time.
And together, the Gifted mourned the man who had believed in them before even one of them had known what it meant to be Gifted.
* * *
That night, under the glow of the moon, they pulled a long white boat out from its hiding place under a low-growing tree, through thick sand, and into the silver waters of the sea. The boat rocked as one by one they climbed in, and the Ploughman and Michael pushed it even farther out. They took up oars and began the journey over the water toward the continent.
Beneath them, the sea blazed with light.
It began with spreading glimmers of colour where the oars dipped into the water. Then fish, fronds, and algae glowed and flashed beneath the waves, pink and blue and green and gold, until the very waters shone. Maggie wove the colours and the spray and the moonlight together into a song of hope and mourning that rose and fell in the soft, flickering glow.
Rehtse watched the lights with her eyes wide, looking up from them only to drink in the bright shining of moon and stars above. She sat next to Virginia, whose eyes looked blankly down toward her hands, and whispered what she could see.
When they caught sight of Galce, at first they thought it was the reflection of the water they saw in the trees. Only as they drew nearer the shore did their quiet gasps announce what they were truly seeing: the trees, like the water, were alight. Moss and leaves glowed soft green and yellow; white and purple flowers shone in the darkness like bright, fragrant stars.
They disembarked quietly, holding their words in wonder. Even Virginia, who could see none of it, seemed to bask in the strange beauty of what surrounded them. As they crossed the sandy shore, she stopped and smiled.
“Do you see something?” the Ploughman asked her.
“Aye,” she answered. “Footprints shining in the sand like polished gold.” Her voice softened. “The King has indeed been here.”
They journeyed deeper into the shining woods. Their path led them between rocky outcrops, and in wonder they watched as a grey wolf pack, the white and silver in their fur glistening, gathered on the rocks and witnessed their passing without threat or fear. And in the light of the trees a tiny brown rock goat, not two weeks old, leaped up to the highest rock in the very midst of the wolves and bleated its greeting.
Miles on, the lights began to dim, and with it, their strength. In a small copse, white lilies emanated a welcome like lamps in the darkness.
“We should rest here,” the Ploughman said. “Sleep until morning.”
No one argued. One by one, they found soft patches in the moss and flowers and laid down to sleep. And as they did, one by one, the lights of the lilies winked out.
* * *
When morning came, they were awakened by birds singing and sunlight filtering through the branches overhead. Maggie sat up, lilies bending near her head. She smiled and looked around. Some of the others were still sleeping, their cloaks dark in the bright green of morning grass. Nicolas and the Ploughman were gone, their voices drifting back from a nearby brook.
On the far side of the clearing, Michael was sitting against a tree with Miracle tucked into his arms. They were both awake, their faces streaked with dried and new tears. Maggie swallowed. She blinked back tears of her own as the beauty of the forest touched her in a whole new way—not diminished, but deepened by the reality of what had happened. The power underlying the forests—and the mountains, and seas, and stars, and all the created world—was something more real even than the loss of the clann. And it was counteracting the evil that had caused that loss. She wondered if Michael and Miracle could see the beauty, or if they were blinded by pain. And she wondered if they would all see the evil defeated for good when they reached the King.
The Ploughman came into the clearing. His hair was wet with cold stream water and sticking to his face. He took his sword from its place against a tree and buckled it on, then took his cloak from a branch and wrapped it around his shoulders. He looked at Michael and Miracle, his face solemn and grieved.
He nudged Roland, who was asleep in the grass next to Pat, gently with his foot. “It is nearly time we were away,” he said. His words did the rest of the job, and the last of the sleepers stirred and roused themselves. Maggie wandered down to the stream, washing her face and arms in cold, sparkling water that flowed over green and white rocks.
They traveled through Galce all that day. In places they passed through thick woodland, and once through a vast tract of charred forest heavy with a sense of loss and mourning. Rehtse laid her hand on Virginia’s arm. “This is where Evelyn attacked Tyrentyllith,” she said.
“Yes,” Virginia answered slowly. “I can see it.”
Kieran’s voice was tentative. “Do you see any sign of him?”
Virginia only shook her head.
They skirted villages rather than passing through them. All the time they were aware that somet
hing about their journey was not as it they expected it to be. It was Nicolas who stated what they could all feel. “I can’t explain it,” he said. “But we’re moving too fast. It should be taking us days to cover this ground. We’re nearing Pravik already.”
Rehtse smiled. “We are in the King’s footsteps. This should not surprise us.”
Virginia, holding Rehtse’s arm, cocked her head. “Why?” she asked.
“In the old days, the priests say the King walked the world often,” Rehtse said. “He took many forms. One of his favourites was that of a child. But the ground was so glad to see him, and the world so eager to welcome him, that it passed quickly beneath his feet. And if he wished to stop and stay awhile, he had to reprimand the earth for its eagerness.”
* * *
Chapter 18: The End of the Order
Stray neared the village of Morvo a few hours after sunrise. He limped down the rocky slope into the valley, pleasing himself by spotting the sparkles where sunlight hit quartz in the rock. His feet hurt, but he was doing his best to ignore them and stagger on. When the journey began he had skipped. Now he did not skip. The soles of his feet were bloody and raw, and a snakebite in his ankle was festering.
He didn’t dwell on that.
A few farm carts rattled past him on the road, the drivers ignoring the small boy straggling through the purple flowering weeds. He kept on, pausing just once to look back up the road as though he was watching for someone. He waited with an expression like a dog with its ears perked, making sure whoever was supposed to be following was in fact doing so, and then smiled, satisfied, and kept going.
Morvo began as a few outlying buildings and fields as the valley flattened out, and then the broad road narrowed and buildings crowded in, houses and shops erected amidst rocky outcroppings on the valley floor. The road had to go around the rocks, so it twisted in unexpected places, and buildings piled up where it seemed odd that they should be. It was easier to build a town in unexpected ways than it would have been to try to dig up the lay of the earth itself. This amused Stray, pleasing him like the flashes of sun in quartz, and he laughed quietly as he wandered into the streets, standing on tiptoe to look into shop windows until he unnerved the various merchants and shopkeepers who caught sight of him and waved him off.
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