To the right of the hearth was a hall.
Gilliam walked toward the fire, slowly removing his jacket. Espere followed behind him. “This place—it didn’t look as big from the outside.”
“It isn’t,” Evayne replied gravely. “There are rooms down the hall. Find one that suits you; it will be ready. I believe that after you have had a chance to bathe and sleep, food will be provided.” She walked past them toward the hall.
“Where are you going?”
“To find Stephen,” she said, without looking back.
“Let me come with you.”
“No.”
“Let me come with you,” Gilliam said again, tossing his jacket aside.
“Lord Elseth, what I do, you cannot do. There is no help you can render me. Leave me be.”
His cheeks flushed. He started to speak and then bit back his retort. Swallowed. “I can help you,” he said. “I can help you call him back.” Hard, to say those words to her. He didn’t ask her where Stephen was; she didn’t volunteer the information.
But she stood with her hand on the wall for long minutes before she at last nodded grudgingly.
• • •
Everything was wrong with her. Her scent was wrong, her shadow wrong, her gait, her voice, her movements. He needed no trance to sense it, although he was very close to calling Hunter’s trance anyway. Her robe seemed to clutch at the ground as if it were a man clinging to the edge of a cliff.
She turned unexpectedly to the left, entering a room that, until the door swung wide, Gilliam had been unaware of. There was a small bed pressed against one wall, and one of the largest windows that Gilliam had ever seen made of real glass opposite it. There was no carpet, and no curtains; no chairs, no dresser, no desk. The only other thing in the room was a fireplace—but it took up the length of one wall; it was at least as large as the one in the great room. Dry wood was piled high and waited for the sparks that would start it burning.
“I am sorry, Lord Elseth,” Evayne said. “But I can no longer spare you the pain.”
Stephen came back to him, swept in like a leaf in a gale. There was no joy in the reunion, and almost no sentience.
Evayne’s brief, cryptic comment had been warning enough; Gilliam, braced for it, managed not to scream.
• • •
Where is he? Where is he, Evayne?
In a place so dark, and held so close, that even Evayne could afford—while Ariane threatened—to ignore its existence.
And where is that? She felt her fingers lance her palms, but it was a distant sensation and almost a pleasure compared to the shadows.
The shadows held every lie that she had ever spoken; they held every death that she had caused, knowing or unknowing; every injury that she had inflicted—and, against the will of intellect, enjoyed inflicting. They held every second of her life that she had used her power, had called it, had stood, contained by it and containing it, a giant astride her world.
They held every hatred, every bitterness, every moment of avarice and envy. Even contempt and bigotry had taken root and blossomed here, although Evayne never showed them the light.
But they also held Stephen. And in the darkness, they grew darkness, in the shadows, shadow. What was not to their liking, they consumed.
Fear makes of us all cowards. And cowardice is universal, predictable, malleable.
She forgot where she had heard it, but remembered the tone and timbre of the speaker’s voice. It was true. And Stephen’s darkness was, measure for measure, so like her own it was hard to separate it.
She cried out. Pain, of the devoured and the devouring, cut through her like sharp, wire mesh.
• • •
Against the pain, Gilliam threw up what shield he had. He staggered toward the window, although the landscape was still the night’s, seeking stars or starlight’s reflections across the snow. He found them in the window’s length.
Stephen had a voice, but it was so distorted it was almost still. He began to press the ties that bound them, speaking in the language of the Hunter and his brother, in the cadence of Gilliam and Stephen, for which there had never been, nor would ever be, any equal. He took Stephen’s pain, and offered his comfort in return, shouting it, whispering it, pleading with it.
Stephen was deaf.
• • •
The darkness could not be separated from the darkness, nor the fear from the fear. What was worse was that this part of her soul was one that was unmapped by her, unremarked on; she did not know it well, because she had refused to learn it. Which part was hers and which his? Did it matter?
She snarled, and it was a real sound, not a shadow sound. She felt it tickle her throat; as a prelude to violence it was welcome.
What does it matter? What is one life? One life, when yours has been surrendered again and again to the cause? He could never have done what you do, never have learned what you learned. What is one life, when if not for you, it would have been lost anyway?
What is one life, when, if not for me, it would have been lost?
She knew then that had it been Zareth Kahn, or Gilliam, or Espere—even Espere—she would have given up and let the shadows feed. She was not proud of the fact, but accepted it for the truth that it was. Because it wasn’t Zareth Kahn, Gilliam, or Espere. It was Stephen.
Stephen.
Her robes twisted around her calves like cold snakes. Her sleeves shuddered and convulsed. In one second, hands that had been empty and clenched clutched at a shard of her soul made manifest: the seer’s ball. Her crystal.
Now it is time for truth, she thought, as the blood from her hands smeared its surface. Stephen.
He rose before her, revealed in all nuance, all fear, and all sorrow. The crystal had once pierced his heart, laid it bare to the eyes of the seer. Had she promised not to use it? Had she promised to guard and to hide what was found?
The past was murky, thankfully obscured; it was the present that consumed her, consumed them both. She called him and looked upon him as she had not done since her youth. And she wept.
Stephen, she said, trying to rip her voice from the grip of the shadows, come. It’s safe. Come to me. She pulled herself free of him, delineating carefully his beginnings and hers, his end—the end she knew—and hers. Come quickly. Come while it is safe. Stephen . . . But there was no movement in response to her call.
• • •
He did not trust her now. He was afraid of her, of what she had done and what she had become. He heard her voice and it was part of the pain and the ugliness with which he was surrounded. A trap. He was certain of it.
It was cold here, and the cold had teeth and fangs; it cut further into him, twisting and biting. But the numbness that came with cold never followed. Instead, images: thieving on the streets, tripping a den mate so that he might fall and distract their pursuers while Stephen escaped, lying, pleading with his mother when yet another man had left in the late evening, knowing that if he were better, somehow, she wouldn’t have to have them—the things in his life that Elseth had taken, thankfully, from him.
Why had they returned?
The words came again; hers, but distorted and sharpened. He did not answer her because he was afraid that if she heard him, she would know where he was.
• • •
She had not foreseen this. She had forced her shadows back, but he could not sense his freedom, and it would not last for long. Come, Stephen, she said, more urgently. There is little time left. Come! She couldn’t force him to leave, because in order to do that she would have to . . . touch him.
Hunger.
Stephen!
• • •
“He won’t—he won’t come,” Evayne said, her voice a dry croak. “I’m calling him—but he won’t come.”
Gilliam felt just a twinge of smugness.
“If he doesn’t come back to us soon, he—won’t be able to.” She stared into the crystal ball that her hands were clawing against. “I’ve given him the passage he needs. But he doesn’t—I don’t think he trusts me.” Her voice was bitter and icy. “And if he doesn’t, we’ve lost him.”
As starkly as he knew how, Gilliam demanded his brother’s attention.
Doubt came back along the bond—but it was Stephen’s doubt. Fear.
I’m here, Gilliam thought, as he redoubled his effort. I’m here. He reached out, with both hands and the strength of his conviction. Come, Stephen. Come back. There’s hardly any time left.
Self-loathing. Doubt. Shame.
Comfort. Belief. Trust.
Stephen answered, but as usual, there were no words to accompany the emotions.
The room, empty but for the bed and Gilliam and Evayne, became shrouded in a magical pall. The robes of the seeress elongated, rising like restless ghosts almost to the ceiling on either side of her.
“Look away, Gilliam of Elseth, look away!”
He did, obeying not her command but an instinct as old as the Hunter. He covered his ears as screams of rage and pain and terror buffeted him. Evayne had opened the gates. One voice in the storm of voices grew higher and thinner, but whether it screamed in rage or terror, in pain or even self-loathing, Gilliam could not say.
Stephen of Elseth, pale and thin and unblinking, stumbled out. The noise was cut off in an instant; the silence that descended was deafening in its suddenness.
Gilliam turned at once to see his brother prone upon the ground. Evayne was gone as suddenly as she had come.
“Stephen!”
Stephen did not move. Gilliam picked him up and carried him to the bed. He laid him down beneath the length of the window. The cold, for it was cold outside, did not chill the glass. But it chilled Stephen’s skin.
Beneath the bed frame were blankets, heavy woolens, and lighter cottons. Gilliam pulled them all out and bundled them around and over Stephen’s body. Then he rose to find food and water for Stephen’s waking.
• • •
The dogs were at the door, and none too pleased to be there. Ashfel was in a foul mood, and was not above taking it out on the rest of his pack. Only Marrat, the oldest and wisest of the alaunts, had the intelligence to wait out of Ashfel’s snapping range.
Gilliam nearly stopped walking when he heard their sullen voices pressing him. They wanted to know where he had been and why he had kept them waiting and if he had dared—dared!—to hunt without them.
He made haste to reach their sides, and after they had greeted him in their most enthusiastic way, he noted that among the paw marks his dogs had left along their path to the way stop there were footprints, faint and light, across the snowtop, accompanied by a sweep of cloth where robes might fall. He did not ask the dogs about it; Connel’s acute sense of smell told him what he needed to know.
He did not understand Evayne.
He did not particularly like her.
But he owed her a debt, and he vowed quietly, as the night’s grip began to crumble across a blueing sky, that he would not be in that debt forever.
• • •
The room was not empty when Gilliam returned with a tray of broth, bread, and warmed milk. Stephen was still in bed, but his wan face was propped up by several pillows, and his eyes were open.
At his side, sitting in robes of midnight blue, was a very young woman. Evayne the younger, as Gilliam thought of her. Her hood was arranged in a spill around her shoulders; her hair, dark as a raven’s wings, was free. She started almost guiltily as he stepped across the threshold.
He wanted to ask her what in the Hells she thought she was doing here, but remembering his vow, said instead, “I brought some food.” His tone was curt and grudging, but nonetheless, Stephen’s approbation for his self-control was clearly felt.
And that made him smile.
“The sun is rising,” Stephen said, ostensibly to Gilliam.
“Yes,” Gil replied. “And I saw yesterday’s sunrise as well. I’m hunt tired.”
Evayne held out her hands for the tray, and after another minute, he let her have it. “I’ll make sure he eats,” she said, almost demurely. “I’ve—I’ve gotten sleep in the last several hours. I can take care of him for now.”
“Stephen?” Gilliam asked brusquely.
Stephen’s nod was not really an answer; his eyes were fixed to the window. The sun’s disk was above the trees, but only by a hair’s width. The sky was pink and orange and yellow; the darkness was gone, and the only shadows were those cast by the light.
Gilliam understood what Stephen did not say. He needed to see the breaking of day before he slept, or ate, or rested. Gilliam didn’t. He could feel Stephen again, and Stephen was himself. That was enough.
“Wake me if you need me,” he said, although he was certain that this young woman—so different in every way but uniform from her powerful, older counterpart—would die before she did so.
“I will,” she said quietly.
• • •
When Stephen woke it was morning, but it was not the same morning that he’d witnessed the start of. The room was the same; a fire burned—he was grateful for its size and the warmth that the flames generated—in the wall opposite his bed. But there were deep green curtains, embroidered with browns and golds to look like a cloth forest, and beside the bed itself was a simple, cedar table that could, in a pinch, seat two. There was a chair as well as a bedstand.
It was the knocking that had pulled him from slumber, although he only realized this when it came again, faint but unmistakable, at the door.
He knew who it was, and who it wasn’t.
“Come,” he said. He spoke softly because he could not put force behind his words. The cold was in his spine, his bones; his chest ached from the bitter winter. Once or twice as a young boy in the King’s City he had been racked with just such pain—but at that time it was accompanied by coughing and hacking.
The door swung open, and the young Evayne stood in its frame, holding a tray. When she saw him, she smiled almost brightly. “I wasn’t certain if it would be you,” she said. Then she glanced down at the soft foods she carried. “But I guessed it might be.”
“Have you tended many other sickly people?”
“No,” she replied firmly. “But I will.” There was no doubt at all in the assertion.
“Oh?” He sat up, changing the configuration of pillows so they formed a brace at his back. Then he looked down and realized that he wasn’t wearing his Hunter’s garb. He blushed.
She blushed as well. “I—I didn’t do that. Lord Elseth did. He—he said you needed cleaning.”
Thank you, Gil. “Do you know who else you’ll tend?”
“No.”
“Then why are you so certain?”
“Are you hungry?” She put the tray down on the table and then pulled the chair up to the bedside. Her robes fell away from her arms, avoiding, as if by magic, the food beneath them. She saw him stare, and smiled with that odd mixture of bitterness, pride, and shyness that she only showed when she was young. “It was a gift,” she said. “From my father. It’s—it’s magic. Made by an Artisan and, maybe—maybe a God.”
“It’s lovely,” he said, meaning it.
Her smile was genuine and unalloyed. “Do you think so? Miramon said it was too dark.”
It was too dark, he thought, for a girl her age; too austere, too severe. But he knew enough to know that a girl her age was not likely to want to hear that. If this Evayne truly knew how to be a girl like any other. “Very few could wear it so well.”
“I don’t get to wear much else.”
“No?”
“No. Not even to sleep in.”
He accepted the flat, shallow bowl she offered him, looking at its contour
and shape as if it were an inverted shield and not a dish. There was a clear broth in it that smelled very strongly like chicken; it was thick and very hot; he could feel it warm his palms.
“It’s an Essalieyan drinking bowl,” she told him gravely, “In most of the inns in the flatlands, you’ll find that food is served in bowls, with bread as a scoop.”
“Ah. Ours are not so shallow.” He drank, and she watched him.
“In Averalaan, they use all sorts of things to eat with. You’ll see them when you get there.” She fell silent for a moment; he glanced up to see her staring out the window. “Lord Elseth said I saved your life last night.”
He stopped drinking his soup and shuddered; the cold gripped him tightly, and for just a moment he could not shake it. Then the waking nightmare passed. “Yes,” he said.
“What am I like?”
“That,” he replied dryly, “I would love to know. Who are you?”
“You’d know that better than I would,” she said, the bitterness once again lacing her words.
“No,” he said, setting his soup and his hunger aside as he met the violet eyes of a hurt young woman. “I wouldn’t. The Evayne that I met last night is not you, no matter what you would like to think. You’re different; you’re your own person.”
“Am I?” she sneered. “Am I really? Everyone knows that I’m going to be her. All of them.”
“Everyone?”
“I can’t tell you anything!” Her half-shout was startling because it was unexpected. Stephen watched her face in silence, and when he showed no reaction—no surprise or disappointment, she began again slowly and more calmly. “I’m not allowed to tell you anything. Everyone wants to know why I’m old and young and old and young. They want to know where I get my power, or how I use it. I’d tell them, if I could. But I can’t. I gave my word, and more.”
“I won’t ask you those things.”
“What else is there to talk about?”
“I don’t know. I imagine that we’ll find something. Or isn’t that why you’re here?”
The Sacred Hunt Duology Page 60