Krysanthos cut the connection before his annoyance built beyond tolerable levels. As soon as he knew the succubus’ personal name and sigil, he would send her back to the Hells—and into the demesne of her worst enemy. But for now he needed her, as she did him.
Another decade. Of this.
Chapter Eleven
“STEPHEN?” THE WORD WAS muffled by carpets and curtains, but it was still conspicuous in the wide-open spaces and hollows of the King’s library. The King’s colors—the colors of Breodanir itself—had been deemed too loud for this particular wing of the palace, and were in evidence only in the banners that hung from the ceiling at the library’s entrance. Wide, long tables and sturdy chairs were grouped in the center, surrounded by the library’s many shelves; those shelves, lined with row upon row of books, rose up to the heights of the roof. Ladders and single-person walkways provided access for the many librarians who worked here. Norn could see one or two deftly pulling single volumes from their places.
“Stephen?” The single word was louder, an obvious affront to the quiet dignity the setting demanded.
“May I help you?” An elderly man appeared at Norn’s elbow. The lines of his round face were heightened by a disapproving frown, the tone of his voice one that only respectable age could wield.
Norn gazed down his nose at the brown-robed man who stood with his arms folded. His clothing was rumpled, if clean, and he looked as if he lived within the bowels of the stacks.
“I’m looking for someone.”
“I’d guessed. Who are you shouting for?”
It was hardly a shout, but the librarian’s expression made it clear that any correction of facts would only be seen as an argument. Norn sighed. “Stephen of Elseth. Young man, about this tall. Fair hair, bluish eyes.”
“You’re with him?” Faint disbelief colored the words before the librarian’s face relaxed. “Well, at least one of you understands the concept of quiet study.”
“Is he here?”
“Yes. You’ll find him reviewing the Mythos of the Essalieyanese culture, or perhaps more properly, of the Weston culture the empire eventually supplanted. If you wish to converse, the sitting room beyond the east doors is appropriate.” The librarian turned and started to walk away.
“Uh, excuse me?”
“What?”
“Where is that?”
“Beyond the east doors.” The frown was back in place.
“I mean where would he be researching these myths?”
“Oh.” The man shook his head. “Of course. I forget that it isn’t obvious to everyone. If you’d care to follow me?” He was short, but for all that he seemed to shuffle, his pace was both brisk and silent.
Stephen sat with his legs curled beneath him, in the center of a chair with arms. It didn’t fit under the desk, but it was clearly quite comfortable. A book was open in his lap, and he studied its pages intently. On the desk, a dozen books in various piles made an impromptu fortress.
“Stephen?”
Stephen looked up. “Norn? Is it dinner already?”
“Not yet.”
The librarian cleared his throat. “The east room,” he said, in a long-suffering tone. But he spared Stephen the ghost of a smile before he walked off.
Stephen nodded at the librarian’s back and gently closed his book. He placed it on one of the piles with such care it became obvious to Norn that the stacks had their logical order. Standing, he stretched his legs, and then led Norn to the discussion chamber that lay to the east of the collection.
He stepped in, held the door for Norn, gestured at a chair, and closed the door—with great care to be quiet—behind him.
“What are you doing here?” Norn’s voice was still hushed. “This is what, the third or fourth day in a row? You’ve missed most of the festivities—and the food, mind—just to read religious texts?”
“I haven’t missed them all,” Stephen replied, with quiet dignity. “I dined yesterday eve with the Ladies Alswaine and Maubreche, and the day before, with Lady Devenson and the King’s clerk for the Hunt. I had lunch with Lady Morganson and her two daughters, Lianor and Lylandra, and two days ago—”
“All right, all right—you’ve made your point. You’ve certainly kept up your end of the Elseth duties. But you’ve missed anything that might be fun in between.”
“I’ve been doing research.”
“I’d guessed. And I thought you didn’t have time to study Breodanir history. I didn’t realize that it was merely lack of inclination.”
Stephen winced, and because it was the festival and the first Hunt, Norn relented. “What’s so fascinating that you study it here?”
“God.”
“The Hunter God?”
Stephen frowned as he nodded. “But there’s so little here about Him. They have volumes about every other god, and more than just volumes about how the gods interact. But about the Hunter God . . . almost nothing. When the pantheon is discussed at all, there’s never any mention of Him. Can He be that minor?”
“Not to us, no. But He is Breodanir’s God; the only people outside of Breodanir who worship Him are envoys from our country. Why are you so curious?”
“The King,” Stephen answered quietly. “And the ceremony afterward. I felt God. I know it.” He shook his head, although Norn said nothing mocking. “But I don’t understand why. The Hunters call themselves Hunter-born, but they aren’t. Not really. Here—oh. It’s outside. Well, I can tell you what it said. The god-born—they’re obvious. First,” he raised a finger, “they have golden eyes. Every one of them. Doesn’t matter which god. Second, they have powers associated with their god. Third, if they study it, they can talk to their god. And fourth—most important—they’re the children of a god.”
“Yes?”
“So the Hunters aren’t Hunter-born, not in the way that someone’s Mother-born, justice-born, or wisdom-born.”
“And?” Clearly Norn was not enlightened by Stephen’s discoveries.
Stephen was a little crestfallen, but he continued anyway, showing the determination of his age. “All right. No god is involved here, not that way. Which leaves the talent-born. Normal people without gods for parents, who somehow have power. The bard-born, the healer-born, the seer-born, the mage-born, the maker-born.” His forehead wrinkled as he tried to remember the others. “Never mind.”
“And you think the Hunter-born should fall in with the talent-born.”
“No!” But he smiled, and his cheeks flushed. He was sharing the fruits of days of labor with someone who was willing to listen. “Because talent doesn’t breed true.”
“And the Hunter-born always have children who are Hunter-born.”
“Yes.”
“So?”
“Don’t you see? The Hunter-born aren’t god-born, but they aren’t talent-born either.”
“And what does that mean?”
Stephen’s face fell, and his shoulders drooped forward a little. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to find out, and I’m not the only one. The Order of Knowledge first opened its Collegium in Breodanir when the mage-born came to study the Hunter-born. They call it a talent, but . . . well, they don’t know why it works the way it does either. Andarion was first circle in the Order, and he spent a long time trying to figure it out. He didn’t.”
“Maybe,” Norn said, rising, “it’s just the power of God—it doesn’t have an explanation to those who won’t take the oath and be affected by it, the arrogance of the mage-born notwithstanding.”
Stephen frowned. “We’d have all the answers, you know.”
Norn nodded and reached out to grip Stephen’s shoulder. “If not for the fire that destroyed the Hunter’s temple over three hundred years ago.”
Stephen’s widening eyes made Norn smile. The arrogance of the mage-born was as nothing when compared to the arrog
ance of the young. “Yes,” he said, trying to keep the amusement from his voice, “you aren’t the only one to ask questions, Stephen, nor the only one to notice the Hunter’s touch in the King’s face at the ascension.” He helped Stephen to his feet. “Let’s put the books away for today.”
“You knew about the fires?”
“In my day,” Norn said, with the mock severity of a much older Lord, “we had to take real lessons; study history as well as weapon use and hunting. Of course I knew about the fires.”
“That’s Tallespan you’re imitating!”
“Indeed. A man who knew much about everything—except perhaps enjoyment and relaxation. Now come; the library doesn’t hold the answers that you’re searching for. If you’re really determined, you might petition the Collegium of the Order, and they might allow you to peruse the treatises that have been written on the Hunter-born.”
Stephen nodded sheepishly, and remained in the library just long enough to make a neat stack of the books he’d been studying. Norn waited, and then made sure that Stephen was ushered to yet another dinner with the various Hunter Lords. The Hunt was gathering.
• • •
The temple walls were stone: solid; square; and obviously the work of competent masons—but no more. There were windows, long and open to catch as much of day’s frugal light as possible, but the window seats were rough and lacked the greater dignity of most of the King’s palace. A fireplace the width of the great hall lay blackened and silent; as silent as the temple itself. No one was there.
Stephen knew he was dreaming. He looked down upon leathered feet and saw the edge of real robes brushing the ground around them. The robes were simple and practical brown. He liked them, and after a moment realized that they reminded him of those worn by the Mother’s Priesthood. There was no green here, no gold, no fanciful embroidery. He liked that, too.
But he was dreaming. He knew it. The world around him seemed imprecise, as if seen through morning eyes. He wiped at his to see if it helped. Felt his face and froze; it was strange, bristly, harder. He pulled his hands away and saw that they, too, had changed. They were lined, thicker, older—and covered in blood. Some of it was new; it was warm and liquid. Some was older, though; red flakes caked the crossed spears of his Order’s ring.
He remembered then why the halls were silent, remembered what had filled them minutes—hours?—before. All of those voices were stilled now. There were no throats left for screaming or shouting or crying. A sudden pain flared up in his side and at his forehead. He was running, or he should have been running. He had stopped to listen for the little noises that spoke of pursuit. There were none.
He began to run.
It’s a dream.
It hurt. He felt a trickle leave his lips and knew it for blood by the warmth along his tongue. He tried a window, for the third or fourth time, and found it sealed as the others had been; an invisible barrier protected the glass and soft lead that might have been his one escape. It was magic. The mage-born were here in force.
Yet it was not the mage-born that frightened him.
It’s only a dream.
He began to run; he did not know where, but the feet did as they beat a steady, quick rhythm against the stone. The hall passed as did the great fireplace and the fading pinks of the coming evening. Torchlight caught his shadow, trapping it and making it seem more substantial in his wake. Worse, the winking torches began to go out.
They knew where he was, but if he moved quickly they would not be able to stop him before he reached his destination. He prayed, the silent vowels cracking his dry lips, although he knew it would do no good. They were at the year-end and the Sacred Hunt was mere days away.
Ah, the darkness; the darkness terrified him. The mages who bore it, who sheltered it and used it and fed it—they were the sword in the expert’s hands. He heard the crackle of blue-light behind his back and leaped around the corner. The wall, inches away from where he had been, flared to life in a cloud of energy that shattered the torch holders.
The two ribs that were cracked pressed against his lungs as he drew breath and winced with the effort. It was a dream. A dream. A dream.
His hands were bleeding; the old blood had been completely superseded by the flow that trailed his arms from the height of his shoulders. His hands shook as he reached the doors and struggled to swing them open.
And then, for a moment, he was clear again. Into stone and silence; the steady quiet of temple life and its security. There, at the center of the room against the tiled inlay of gold and wood and marble, a small altar rose from the ground.
Against green cushions, the perfect edge of a well-oiled sword glinted silver in the light of the eternal flame that sat, like a miniature sun, in the flat, beamed ceiling above. The spearhead, silver also, topped a hardwood pole that had to be replaced every few generations, as it rested against the floor. The couples and leads were perfect, undisturbed, the very icons of the temple’s inner life.
These were symbols of comfort and continuity; the regalia that went with the oath. But they were not what he sought. He ran to the altar. The wound had opened enough so his hand’s quick passage above the cushions left a telltale mark.
Shaking, he brought away the last of the Hunter’s hold in his hands; a simple, carved horn that defied time, temperature, and moisture to remain as perfect now as it was on the day of its making.
His fingers covered the only marking upon it as he brought it to his lips and called upon lungs that might not draw breath strong enough to wind it. Cold caught him in his midsection; cold and the heat of fire. He cried out in agony, and his hands closed rigidly.
He could not let go of the horn.
Wheeling, staggering, he turned to face the open doors that held his enemy. He reached out and gripped the altar’s edge with one hand, needing to steady himself. He caught a glimpse of scorched brown cloth and the blistered flesh beneath it before he turned once again to the horn.
But the door held none of the mage-born, and none of the darkness. Instead, in the center of the frame, a slender figure robed in midnight blue stood. A hood was drawn over its face, and in silence it regarded him.
It’s only a dream, he thought, and felt his shoulders sag in relief. The dream was turning. He saw his hands shift as age and blood reversed themselves and vanished into nothing.
“Yes,” the figure said, in a voice that was soft and low. “It is a dream, but not only. The darkness waits without, but does not wait idly. Will you not sound the horn, oathtaker? Will you not fulfill your ancient pledge?”
Around the figure’s feet, shadow pooled and began a slow crawl across the ground. Where it passed, stone began to smoke like kindling.
It’s only a dream. But he could not escape it, and the darkness was drawing closer still. Shaking, he lifted the horn to his lips and his now beardless face. The horn had not changed at all.
It transformed the air in his mouth to a sound that he had never heard before. No horn, no simple hunting device, had ever made a sound so lovely and so full. It echoed in the air, filling the chamber and stretching ever outward. His body shivered and resounded with the single, low note.
The room blurred; he lifted his sleeve—now Hunter green and whole—and brushed his eyes free of tears. The figure in blue bowed low and stepped slowly out of the doorway.
Behind waited the Beast. It snarled, its voice as terrifying as the horn’s note had been beautiful. The great, shaggy throat uttered no words—how could it?—yet Stephen understood its meaning clearly.
It had been summoned, and finally it had arrived. Its fangs, its claws, its very size defied his ability to absorb details.
“Yes,” the figure in blue repeated, “it is just a dream, Stephen of Elseth. But it is the first dream.”
He had no time for horror or fear at the words; all of his attention was upon the Hunter’s Death.
<
br /> • • •
Stephen woke in the morning with the webs of the dream still around him. He struggled out of bed, leaving a trail of sheets and counterpane in his wake. The curtains were heavy and stiff as he dragged them away from the window. Light, muted and diffuse, relieved the room of its dark edges. He peered up, saw the gray clouds above that moved at the wind’s whim.
It was cool. The fire no longer burned in the grate. Hands shaking, he began to dress. He did not want to call servants to start the flames burning. He wanted to be free of his room.
He met Gilliam in the breakfast hall—a hall that was mostly empty. The Hunter Lords had reveled and discoursed for most of the previous evening and were still abed. Here, in the King’s City, scant days before the calling of the Sacred Hunt, candles and oil were in plentiful supply. If any thought the expense frivolous, very few could be heard to comment on it.
“What’s wrong?” Gilliam said, from halfway across the hall. He pushed himself away from the table and strode across the solid, cold floor. For a moment, as he crossed the path of the fireplace, he looked like a slender shadow surrounded by tongues of flame. “Stephen?”
“Why are you awake?”
“Same reason you are.”
Stephen really wished that Gilliam would lower his voice. The few Lords and—much worse—their Ladies who had graced the hall so early were clearly listening. In a whisper, he said, “Did you have a nightmare?”
“No.” Gilliam frowned. “But you did. Woke me up and kept me awake.” His eyes narrowed. “You look awful. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” He tried to brush past, and Gilliam caught his elbow.
“It isn’t nothing. You feel as if you’ve seen the Hunter’s Death.”
Stephen couldn’t lie to Gilliam. It was always brought home this way. He would try, and Gilliam would refuse to let him be. The oath-bond between them was strong, even for huntbrothers.
“You aren’t wearing your colors,” Stephen said lamely.
“And you’re wearing yours. Now what is wrong?” Gilliam caught Stephen’s shoulders. “No. Don’t say ‘nothing.’ Don’t shrug your shoulders at me. We promised, and we’re bound by it.”
The Sacred Hunt Duology Page 21