And his Chosen would gaze into his eyes and bow down to him, kneeling at his feet, saying, “Thank you, oh, glorious blessed one, who has appeared to me, who is unworthy!”
Naturally he would forgive his new Chosen everything, and return with him or her to Haven, where everyone in the Collegium, Heralds and Companions alike, would gaze in astonished wonder at both Companion and Chosen and see Kenisant’s true glory at last . . .
But dreams of his glorious future could not comfort him for long. And noble solitude, once it went on long enough, turned out not to be nearly as much fun as the Bards’ songs implied.
It was then that Kenisant had an absolutely brilliant idea (which was only to be expected, since he was, after all, him). Why wait another two years, or three, to be judged old enough to go on Search? Why not leave now, at once? If he was Grove-Born (and he was, of course), did the usual rules even apply to him? In a few days—weeks at most—he could return with his Chosen, and everyone who had been mean to him would be stricken with guilt at what they’d done.
It was a wonderful plan.
• • •
Kenisant’s plan seemed a lot less wonderful six weeks later, as he galloped desperately toward a stand of trees, hoping they would shelter him from the onrushing storm. Bad enough to be pelted with wind-lashed rain and covered from head to tail in cold mud, but this storm was no ordinary storm. He could sense Magery in the roiling purple-green clouds spilling over the top of the ridge, and that disturbed him even more than not quite knowing where he was. (He wasn’t lost, of course: Kenisant the Beautiful never got lost!)
He knew perfectly well this storm should be impossible. There were no Mages in Valdemar, and spells cast outside of Valdemar couldn’t cross its border.
But the aura of the storm made his skin prickle all over. He laid his ears back and lashed his tail uncertainly. Would the trees shelter him? Could he outrun the storm? Was there better shelter to be had? He couldn’t make up his mind, but apparently his body did not require his advice: He found himself bolting away from the ominous cloudbank with every ounce of effort he could muster.
It didn’t help.
The light dimmed as if the sun were setting. Behind him, wind roared and he heard the trees splintering with a sound like winter ice breaking.
And then he felt nothing at all.
• • •
“I could be home in bed,” Brother Junchan announced to his horse. His horse (who had listened patiently to the same complaint many times over the past sennights) was as unimpressed as ever.
“It’s a nice bed,” Junchan went on. “Warm. Dry. Unmoving.”
The horse flicked her tail at a fly on her flank.
Junchan sighed deeply. His warm dry bed would have to wait, probably for more sennights than he really cared to think about. He was here—for values of “here” that included “the middle of nowhere”—because had a job to do.
Junchan had been one of Solaris’ loyal followers for a very long time. Even if he was far too pragmatic to believe Her Radiance could ever manage to do what she said she would someday do, oh, in his secret heart (the one most of his friends would swear he didn’t have) he had hoped . . .
And that hope had been rewarded. Solaris was miraculously crowned Son of the Sun by Vkandis Himself, and she survived an inevitable “unfortunate accident” almost immediately afterward. While the populace of Karse preferred to think of Solaris’s survival as a miracle, Junchan knew it was really because of the many long years her secret followers had spent preparing for just that moment.
Many of Solaris’ circle had thought that once she gained the Sun Throne and survived long enough to prove that attempting to remove her would be a futile exercise, their labor would be at an end. But Junchan was a cynic (or as he preferred to say, a realist) by nature: he knew the real work was only just beginning. Radiance Solaris was still surrounded by the disarray of a priesthood turned corrupt and greedy, and the wreckage of the nation those priests had plundered for years. Even before her throne was secure, Solaris had turned to the task of rooting out those spoiled priests and undoing the damage they had caused. Of course (as Junchan could have told them), dealing with the false clerics only led to yet another problem: there were now gaping vacancies in the priesthood of Vkandis, and far fewer priests than there was work to do.
Theoretically, there were bodies to fill those holes. During Radiance Lastern’s long reign, many of those most loyal to Vkandis Sunlord’s teachings had fled Karse for other lands, most of them in fear of their lives. They would almost certainly be eager to return to Karse and serve under a true Son of the Sun.
Assuming Solaris could find them.
And so Her Radiance had set Brother Junchan to his task.
His current quarry was a middle-aged, thoroughly undistinguished priest named Ponious, who had served a tiny village called Stervewold until a Voice entered the Morningray Mountains intending to make a name for himself by rooting out heresy in Stervewold and the surrounding villages. Whether it existed or not.
The villagers, having been warned by Father Ponious, fled. Father Ponious, not being a complete lackwit, also fled. The villagers returned when Voice Typerus gave up and left.
Father Ponious (wisely) did not.
Brother Junchan was supposed to find him, tell him that there was a new Son of the Sun, convince him to return, and escort him to Sunhaven.
At least, aided by a large bag of gold and a good horse, Junchan made better time following Father Ponious’ long-cold trail than the good father had blazing it.
• • •
Kenisant awoke from a very odd dream. He’d dreamed he was standing all by himself in a small boat that was drifting down the Terilee River while the land unspooled backward on both sides. When he awoke, it took him several minutes to realize he wasn’t still dreaming, and several more to parse what he was seeing.
This was not the Terilee River. And he was not standing in a boat. He was lying on his side on a sledge, watching the world go by at knee height. There was something bulky wrapped around his right foreleg, and he had the sense of something . . . sticky . . . covering most of his body beneath the thin blanket draped over him. He thrashed, trying to get himself upright, and then discovered he was not merely lying on a sledge, he was tied to it!
There was forest and grass all around him (as far as he could see), but the sledge itself was being drawn along over a road covered in glistening white sand. Whatever was pulling the thing, it was silent and scentless. He couldn’t imagine what it might be, and he thrashed again, trying futilely to reach the ropes with his teeth.
“Now, now, poor white horsey, you stay right where you are. Nothing bad is going to happen to you.”
The speaker was walking on the wrong side of the sledge for him to be able to see her. His head wouldn’t turn that far, and when he tried, he became suddenly aware that everything ached. All he could tell was that whoever was with him was female, young, and spoke with a strange accent Kenisant had never heard before.
:I am not a “horsey”!: he snapped indignantly. He had a sudden moment of stark terror: was this his Chosen? No, that simply was too horrible to contemplate. He would never be able to live down the indignity!
The woman giggled. “Prysane says you say you aren’t a horsey! Of course you are, silly! And a talking horsey—that’s even better!”
She walked around to the other side of the sledge, and now he could see her. She looked perfectly normal, except for the fact she had a very large snake with pale silver and gold scales resting on her shoulders and coiled around her throat.
:I am a Companion of Valdemar!: Kenisant said. :Release me at once, or—:
He actually couldn’t think of an “or.”
The snake raised its head and flicked the woman’s ear lazily with its tongue.
“Poor white talking horsey,” the woman said
, sounding now as if she were trying to keep from laughing. “You wouldn’t like it if I did, you know. But I’m going to make you all better again. And clean, too!”
She reached over to stroke his neck. The snake around her neck regarded him with flat bright eyes.
He could almost swear the thing was laughing at him.
• • •
It was another three candlemarks before they reached their destination. During that time, Kenisant had learned a number of really useless bits of information.
The girl’s name was Indibar. Prysane was her snake—a moon-serpent, she said. Prysane could hear Mindspeech and apparently could relay it to his mistress, but he was selective about what information he passed on, and Indibar couldn’t hear Kenisant directly. As he’d suspected, this wasn’t Valdemar, but Indibar hadn’t named the location, and Prysane had ignored all Kenisant’s questions.
He couldn’t convince anyone to untie him, and he couldn’t break the ropes.
This was turning out to be the worst Search ever.
• • •
“Almost there!” Indibar said to him. She sounded cheerful. (She always sounded cheerful. It was really depressing.) He vowed that the moment she released him, he would run as fast as he could back to Haven. Not because he was scared (of course not!) but because he carried vital news: There was a snake-wielding crazy woman somewhere near their borders.
Queen Selenay would probably insist on presenting him with a medal personally.
This pleasant daydream occupied his mind until the sledge came to a stop. They were in a clearing in the middle of a vast forest. Just ahead, he could see a long low building that put him vaguely in mind of a pile of twigs crossed with a haystack. It seemed to be half house and half barn; there was an open doorway, a window with its shutters folded back, and, a little farther along the front, a set of wide tall doors that bore a faint resemblance to the stable doors back in Haven.
As he lay there, wondering what the madwoman would do next, a cat walked through the open doorway to greet them. It was bandaged around the middle and most of its fur had been singed off, but it looked cheerful enough. A raven with a splinted wing announced itself with a loud “caw” as it hopped up from somewhere inside the house to perch in the window, and a wolf with three legs and a bandaged stump where the fourth had been struggled to his feet from where he’d been napping in the shadows.
“See, horsey?” Indibar said. “You’ll have plenty of company here until you get better!”
Was she a Healer? Or a mad wizard?
She knelt beside the sledge, beginning to undo the ropes that held him in place. “Now you stay right there once you’re untied, talking horsey. You’re hurt, you know, and I wasn’t really able to treat you where I found you. So I’ll have to do it here, and you’ll have to help.”
Kenisant snorted derisively. Did she really expect him to believe this nonsense? He might have a few bumps and bruises, yes, but Kenisant the Beautiful did not permit such trifling things to impede him. The moment he was free, he lunged to his feet.
But he was suddenly terribly off balance, and the wrapped leg buckled beneath him in a sickening fashion. The blanket had fallen free when he moved, and now he could feel the sting from the burns on his skin.
His vision went white with pain, and he fell to his knees.
:What did you do to me?: he demanded, trying not to sound as frightened as he suddenly felt.
“I told you to stay still,” Indibar said, sounding irritated for the first time.
Worst Search ever.
• • •
The next two hours passed in a haze of pain and indignity, but at the end of it, Kenisant had been installed in one of the stable boxes attached to Indibar’s home. A sling passing under his belly was attached to a turnbuckle in the ceiling. It had two purposes: one, to keep him from falling (or escaping, he couldn’t help but think), and the other, to take part of his weight.
Whatever had happened during or after the Mage Storm had left him scratched, burned, and (nearly the worst!) with a broken leg. As if that weren’t enough, his beautiful flowing silver tail was gone! It had all been burned away or torn loose until only the dock and a few singed and straggling hairs remained.
He looked ridiculous.
Of course Indibar told him she could fix him up good as new—but what if she wasn’t telling the truth? (How could she be? a small part of his mind asked. She blindfolded you before she took the bandages off. You haven’t even seen your foreleg. What if nothing heals? What if you end up like that wolf you saw?)
It was too terrible a possibility to contemplate. Of course, Companions died (bravely and gloriously) in battle. But that was different! What if he could never walk again—or run? What if he was going to look ridiculous for the rest of his life? His glorious future would be ended before it began! And no one would ever know what had happened to him. He wasn’t even in Valdemar!
He wished, very hard, that his mother were here.
• • •
Father Ponius was wet and cold and hungry. By now, there were holes in the soles of his boots, and he had absolutely no idea where he was. But that was all right. There were two things he did know, and they were both good things: One, he was not in Karse. Two, the Fury Typuris had summoned to punish him hadn’t caught up to him yet.
It was true that Ponius had never actually seen the Fury that followed him, but he knew it was dogging his footsteps just as surely he knew Vkandis was great and good and that water was wet. Typuris was a red-robe. Typuris didn’t like him. Red-robes had the power to summon Vkandis’ Furies. Q.E.D.
As it was common knowledge that Valdemar was protected by a boundary no demon could cross (other than the White Demons of Valdemar, of course; apparently they were a special case), he had first hoped for sanctuary there. But the thousands of invisible eyes that watched him night and day had soon disabused him of that notion. He’d crossed the border again as quickly as he could and continued eastward, never stopping in any town or village for longer than a day. If he were to tarry, the Fury might catch up to him, and Father Ponius was a kind and gentle man who did not wish others to suffer for his crimes.
It was no crime, he told himself stubbornly. Vkandis is kind and merciful and reserves to Himself the power to sit in judgment! Nor does He delegate this power to wealthy Voices who presume to speak for Him!
No matter how completely he believed that, his skin crawled a little each time he gave vent to such thoughts. The Voices might be presumptuous, but their power was as real as their interpretation of the Writ and the Rule was narrow.
He only hoped that someday the Fury would get tired of chasing him.
• • •
Kenisant soon realized he was a prisoner of war, and he made up his mind to conduct himself accordingly. He stopped using Mindspeech entirely, since the only one who could hear him was Prysane, who either couldn’t or wouldn’t respond and who always seemed to be laughing at him anyway.
Unfortunately, that didn’t actually mean Indibar stopped talking to him. She chattered constantly. When she wasn’t talking to him (and calling him “Horsey”!) she was singing under her breath. (He was wholly indignant at how soothing he found it.) In the mornings she brought him food and water and medicine (he tried to resist taking it but never quite succeeded). She checked the burns on his flanks and ribs and ran her hands over the splinted and bandaged leg, checking (as she insisted on telling him) for fever. Not for the first time, he almost found himself wishing the mad Healer really was his Chosen. At least he’d have someone to talk to then. He’d never been alone before, or in a strange place. If—when, he told himself firmly—he made it back to Haven, he swore he’d never complain that it was boring again.
Kenisant the Beautiful is brave and fearless and needs no one! he told himself. And for the first time, the words rang hollow.
• �
�� •
“I hate demons,” Junchan remarked to his horse. “I don’t care if you call them Vkandis’ Furies, or Dark Servants, or my Aunt Jaeline—they’re demons, and they’re trouble.”
His horse snorted and pranced anxiously, as unhappy about the faint lingering smell of ozone and what might be the remains of clawed footprints scorched into the forest floor as Junchan himself. “Yeah,” he said, stroking his horse’s neck soothingly. “Me too.”
Though Junchan was only a Lay Brother of Vkandis—and thus possessed exactly as much Magery as his frequently invoked and possibly mythical aunt—he knew a great deal about Magery. Quite enough to read the signs and know that Typuris had set a demon on Father Ponious’ trail. If he’d had a low opinion of the Voices to begin with (and he had), he had an even lower opinion of (now ex-) Voice Typuris. It was hard enough to control a demon within Karse’s boundaries (so he’d been told). It was, apparently, nearly impossible to do so if one had sent it on an open-ended wild goose chase with no deadline.
And while Solaris had banished all demons from Karse at the same time she’d swept the Priesthood clean of its demon-summoners, her power extended only as far as Karse’s borders. Which meant, unfortunately, that the demon who was clearly still following Father Ponious had not conveniently evaporated. If only Junchan could be so lucky!
Junchan had absolutely no notion of what he’d do when he caught up to it. He only hoped Her Radiance had prepared for this eventuality as she’d prepared for so many others.
And he prayed earnestly to Vkandis that the demon wouldn’t catch up to the wayward Father Ponious before Junchan did.
“I hate demons,” he repeated unhappily. His mount sighed gustily in agreement.
• • •
“Good morning, horsey! I’ve brought you a present!” Indibar said as she walked into his stall. It was the start of Kenisant’s second sennight of captivity, and in addition to the now-familiar pails and the large canvas bag of medicines, she had what looked like a long bundle of rag strips slung over one shoulder (and over Prysane, too; he hoped the serpent found it annoying). Even before beginning her now-familiar routine, she walked around behind him. He startled in confusion when he felt her tying something to what remained of his tail, but she just kept on tying.
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