King Zandaros patted Borenson on the shoulder, and stood as if to leave. “You and your wife are free to go, Sir Boretison. King Criomethes here will tell you all that you need to know. Feel free to enjoy our hospitality here at Iselferion for as long as you like.”
At that, King Zandaros turned to leave the room. A lord behind him, a tall man with sweeping silver hair, all dressed in a black tunic, growled angrily and made some demand.
Zandaros turned to Sir Borenson. “My sister's son asks a question of you. It seems that he suffered many things yesterday in a dream. He believes that one of my nephews, Pilwyn Coly Zandaros, is dead, and that you might know something of this?”
Borenson didn't know how to answer. He could see rage in the tall fellow's eyes, and dared not admit that he had killed Zandaros himself.
Myrrima spoke up quickly, her voice as soft and liquid as water. “It was Pilwyn Coly Zandaros who caused us to initiate our visit, Your Highness,” Myrrima said, “when he sought to assassinate the Earth King.”
“Assassinate?” Zandaros asked.
“He bore a message case,” Myrrima said, “and on it was inscribed a curse in runes of Air. He claimed that that message came from you.”
The lord behind the Storm King suddenly grew fearful and backed away. Zandaros whirled on him with lightning in his eyes. He smiled cruelly, like a cat considering how to torment a mouse.
“I apologize for that,” Zandaros said. “Our kingdom is ever rife with intrigues. Believe me, reparations will be made. And if Pilwyn is indeed dead, then it only relieves me of the chore.”
“What of an answer?” Borenson asked. “What would you have me tell King Orden?”
Zandaros turned on him and nodded graciously. “I think that I should like to meet this king of yours that has killed twenty thousand reavers. Indeed, I have a sudden urge to hunt at his side. I leave within the hour. I hope to reach the mountains by dawn. Would that be advisable, milady?”
Zandaros gazed into Myrrima's eyes, as if asking if that was what she wanted. Something had passed between them, Borenson felt sure.
“Yes,” Myrrima said. She seemed to be pondering, almost in a trance. “He will need your peculiar strengths.”
The Storm King whirled and left, and many of the other lords followed at his heel, except for two men who stood by the door. One of them was the grandfatherly king that had spoken earlier. The other was a handsome young Inkarran, dressed in black silk, so much like him that he had to be his son.
“I King Criomethes,” the old man introduced himself again, “and this son, Verazeth. Our kingdom far south. Please, follow.”
Borenson glanced back uncertainly at Myrrima.
“Please,” Criomethes said. “You guest. You hungry? We feed.”
By now, Borenson's stomach was cramping from want of food. The lizard he'd eaten last night, and the bit of fruit, had not filled him.
“Yes, we're hungry,” he said, thinking to himself, hungry enough even to eat Inkarran food. “Thank you.”
Criomethes took his elbow and led him back the way that they had come. “This way,” the king said. “Is time for feast here. Our room quite small. For this I sorry.”
They walked through shadowed corridors until they reached the great hall. A throng filled that hall, young Inkarran lords dressed in dark, deep-hooded cloaks, with their armor gleaming beneath. They were already making preparations to ride with the Storm King. There was excitement in the air, a smell of war.
King Criomethes led them into a side corridor, along busy streets that seemed to stretch for miles. They passed doorway after rounded doorway, each covered with nothing more than a curtain, until at last the king steered them to a large room.
“Come in, come in,” the king said. He stood aside from the door and urged Borenson inside, slapping him on the back.
Borenson stopped just outside the doorway, hesitant to enter a room before a king. A cooking fire burned dully in a hearth, and four girls were frying vegetables in its coals. Thick furs and pillows covered the floor, and a tall golden carafe sat on a low table, along with several half-empty glasses of wine.
“Please,” Criomethes said, gesturing for Borenson to enter. Borenson stepped inside, and Criomethes came on his heel, still patting him on the shoulder like an old friend. “I glad Zandaros spared life. You be very useful.”
At that, Borenson heard a gasp behind him, and turned to see Myrrima stumbling toward the floor. Prince Verazeth stood over her, and Borenson saw the glint of gold from a needle ring on his hand. At that very instant, he felt something prick his shoulder, where Criomethes had been touching him.
“Wha—?” he started to say.
His shoulder went numb instantly, and his arm went slack.
A poison, Borenson realized, a paralying drug.
His heart pounded furiously in terror, causing ice to lance through his arm. The Inkarrans were masters in the art of poisons, and their surgeons used a number of paralyzing drugs collected from the skins of flying lizards and various plants.
Borenson reached for Criomenes, thinking to deal him a death blow, but the room spun violently, his thoughts became clouded, and he grabbed the man for support.
His legs seemed to turn to rubber and he dropped to the carpets, no more able to remain upright than if he were a sack of onions.
16
THE BETRAYAL
A man who loves money above all else will feel most betrayed when his wealth is plundered. A man who loves praise will feel most violated when. others speak ill of him. And the man who loves virtue will break when evil is done in his name.
—Hearthmaster Coldridge, from the Room of Dreams, On Measuring a Man's Heart
Gaborn and Iome raced through the Underworld, measuring time by the pounding of their feet, by the wheezing of their breath. The ribs of the tunnel flashed by as white as the cartilage of a windpipe. Gaborn imagined that he was traveling down the throat of some fell beast. Going down, ever downward, until he reached its belly.
He chased the Consort of Shadows ceaselessly, going ever deeper into the earth, sweat storming from his brow, through a landscape of nightmare, past mud pots that splattered gray mud like pain, beneath tunnels where reavers had channeled steam that thundered through pipes of mucilage. The deeper they ran, the more grotesque and abundant the landscape became. Gaborn ran for what seemed days, stopping only long enough to drink greedily from a pool of tepid sulfur water or choke down something from the provisions. But no amount of drinking could assuage his thirst, and no amount of food seemed to give him the strength he needed to keep running.
The path slanted through the Underworld, sometimes leading down trails not meant for humans—through vertical chimneys where reavers had carved handholds and footholds.
He felt a great threat ahead, not more than a few miles now, a wall of death.
As he ran, Gaborn also reached out to sense the danger rising in Carris. He tried to imagine his Chosen people, living pleasant lives in safety. But all he felt in their future was death.
Once, after drinking, he leaned with his back to the wall, wrapped his arms around his knees, and bowed his head, letting the sweat drain from his chin. He squatted on the floor of the cave near a fetid stream, in a place where blind-crab shells were piled thick on the ground like discarded breastplates in an armory.
“What's wrong?” Iome asked.
Gaborn tried to answer in measured tones. “I'm worried. I think it must be well after midnight now. The threat to Heredon is diminishing. I think our messengers are warning the people to hide there. But in Carris the threat keeps growing. All evening, I've sensed… people gathering. Almost everyone that I Chose in the city is returning. I can feel them stir-ring, coming together.”
“But,” Iome rightfully argued, “you told them to return.”
“Not like this,” Gaborn said. “There were women at Carris that I Chose, and children. So many of those little ones are going back. Hundreds of thousands. They must think that
the castle is safer than the villages nearby, but it's not. They must think that they can help in the fight….”
He shook his head in dismay. He imagined them hurriedly preparing the defenses in the castle. The women would be boiling rags for bandages and preparing food in advance of the battle. The children would be collecting rocks for the catapults and fletching arrows, while the men worked at shoring up the breaches in the castle walls. “The sense of danger is rising so high,” Gaborn said. “It's… I fear I've sent them to fight a battle they cannot win. I think I've sent them to their slaughter.”
Iome knelt beside him. “You're doing your best.”
“But is it good enough?” Gaborn asked. “I'm sending people to war, and against what? If they fought reavers alone, that would be enough. But we are fighting an enemy we've never even guessed at—the One True Master of Evil.”
Iome went quiet, and the silence around them deepened. Even with endowments of hearing, Gaborn could detect nothing. The silence around them, the immovable wilderness, was overwhelming. The only sound came from a few elephant snails nearby, their huge shells clacking together as they fed on moss. Even the sound of Gaborn's voice did not carry more than a few feet beyond his face.
Iome opened Erden Geboren's book and scanned through the headings. Gaborn sat for a moment, waiting for Iome to find something of interest. He noticed a twinge, as if a wave of fresh air washed over him. As it did, he felt suddenly lighter, more refreshed. He'd noticed it once or twice before, over what felt like the past hour or two.
No, he realized. I've noticed it a dozen times. Someone is vectoring endowments to me.
He'd last taken endowments in Heredon—brawn, stamina, grace, metabolism, wit. Now his messengers had gone to Heredon, telling the folk of the dangers to come. The endowments had to be vectored by the facilitators at Castle Groverman. But why would they do it?
Iome scanned through the headings of Erden Geboren's book. Gaborn peered at her. Was she moving more slowly than she had an hour ago?
No, she couldn't be, he thought. Perhaps someone is vectoring metabolism to me. Now that he thought about it, it had been less of a labor running for the last stretch. Iome had kept falling behind.
“Gaborn,” Iome said. “You mentioned that the danger is growing less in Heredon. Can you tell me how my friend Chemoise will fare?” For years, Chemoise had been Iome's maid of honor, and they'd been inseparable.
Gaborn reached out with his Earth Senses. Felt the danger rising around the girl. “If she hears my warning and takes heed, there may be hope for her.”
“May be?” Iome asked.
“Iome,” he said, “you don't want to play this game. Don't ask me to name the names of those who will die. Nothing is certain.”
“All right,” she said, biting her lip. She pointed at something in the book. “Here's a chapter on fighting a locus. It says that ‘Against a locus, no weapon forged of steel can prevail.'”
Iome flipped to the next page, and frowned. She began rapidly skimming through the next dozen pages. “If we cannot kill it with steel,” she offered, “then we must find another way.”
Her voice sounded unnaturally deep and slow.
“Something is wrong,” Iome said. “Erden Geboren was going to talk about how to fight the locus, but the pages have been ripped out.”
“Ripped out?” Gaborn asked. “Why would someone rip them out?”
Iome frowned, then gave Gaborn a hard look. “Think about it: Erden Geboren told people what he was fighting seventeen hundred years ago, but in all of the legends, in all of the myths, all we've ever heard is that he fought reavers. There can only be one answer: someone doesn't want us to fight the loci.”
“Or perhaps,” Gaborn countered, “someone took the pages precisely because he wanted to know how to fight the creature.”
“I wish I could believe that,” Iome said.
The heat was unbearable, worse than the hottest day Gaborn had ever witnessed. He took another drink from the pool, but no amount of water could quite refresh him.
Another twinge hit him, barely perceptible. His muscles tightened. He felt sure now. Someone was vectoring endowments to him.
When a Runelord took an endowment, if he took it directly from the Dedicate, he received more than just the attribute, he normally felt a rush of ecstasy. But coming as they were through vectors, Gaborn only sensed the virtue that grew inside him each time a facilitator transferred an endowment.
He got up and peered forward, down the long tunnel. He stretched his senses, reached out with with his Earth Sight. The sense of impending doom had lessened. With each endowment he received, the threat diminished. Ahead, the wall of death was cracking.
Iome must have noticed something amiss. “What's happening?”
“My facilitators,” Gaborn said, “have begun vectoring more endowments to me.”
Iome looked up at him with sadness in her eyes, resignation, but no surprise.
“Did you tell them to do this?” Gaborn demanded.
Iome nodded. “You wouldn't have taken more endowments yourself, so I sent a message to the facilitators in Heredon, asking them to vector the endowments to you.”
Gaborn's heart fell. The facilitators were vectoring greater endowments to him—brawn, grace, stamina. Each time they did, they put the life of a Dedicate at risk. So many of Gaborn's Dedicates had died at Raj Ahten's hands already that he would not have dared seek more endowments.
“No promises were to be made to the Dedicates,” Iome said by way of apology. “No offers of gold, no threats. Those who give themselves are doing it out of their love for their homeland, nothing more.”
“How many endowments did you tell them to vector?” Gaborn asked heavily.
“All that they can,” Iome said. “If all four of our facilitators work through the night, they should be able to give you a thousand or more.”
Gaborn shook his head in horror at all of the suffering, all of the pain he would cause the Dedicates. Another burst of virtue passed through him, and he felt the desire to move faster. He stared at Iome, and could not begin to tell her how deeply she had betrayed his trust. The new Dedicates would be at risk, not just from men like Raj Ahten but from the stresses of giving endowments. Sometimes, men who gave brawn would die of weakness as their hearts failed; or those who gave grace would have their lungs cease up, and never draw breath again.
“Why?” he asked.
Iome shook her head, and tears began to pool in her eyes, as if to say I'm sorry. Instead, she said what she had to: “Our people need us to be strong now. If we don't kill the One True Master, nothing else matters. I'd have taken the endowments myself, if I could. But I don't have your gifts. I didn't dare waste any more forcibles on myself.”
Gaborn looked down at her, dismayed. By granting so many endowments of metabolism, his people might well doom him to a solitary existence, moving so fast that he would be all but incapable of carrying on a normal conversation, a life where he could age in a matter of months or years, while his loved ones lived out their normal lives. They could make a sacrifice of him.
Gaborn wasn't just hurt. He felt as if something inside him had broken.
“Don't look at me like that,” Iome said. “Don't hate me. Just… I just want you to live.” Gaborn had never seen such grief in a woman's countenance. It was as if she were being torn in two.
“Life for me isn't just existing,” Gaborn said. “It's how I choose to live that matters.”
Iome took his face in her hands and held it, peering into his eyes. Even now, he could not meet her gaze, but stubbornly looked down at her lips. “I want you,” Iome said. “I want you in my life, and I mean to save you by any means possible.”
He closed his eyes, unable to confront what she had done. She was stronger than he, more willing to bear the guilt that came from taking endowments, more willing to bear shame, more willing to sacrifice the things that she loved for the common good.
For a long moment, she h
eld him. Then she kissed him once on the forehead, once on the lips, and once on each hand.
“Go now,” Iome said. “I can't keep up with you any longer. I'd only slow you down. I'll follow as best I can. Mark the trail for me.”
Gaborn nodded heavily, then peered at her. “May I have Averan's staff? She'll need it when I find her.”
Iome handed him the simple staff of black poisonwood. Gaborn felt in his heart, considering the path ahead. Yes, the wall of death awaited him just a few miles up the tunnel.
I'll either clear a path for Iome, Gaborn thought, or die in the attempt.
Gaborn held Iome for a long moment, and whispered into her ear. “I love you. I forgive you.”
He turned and raced down the tunnel, redoubling his pace, becoming smaller and smaller. For a moment he looked the size of a young man, and then a boy, and then a toddler, until at last he turned round a bend and was gone altogether.
17
THE BONE MAN
Even in the driest desert, a flower sometimes blooms.
—a proverb of Indhopal
Averan was in the fetid prison where lost souls huddled around her in the blackness, drawn to the light of her ring like moths. They were staring at the gem, at her.
Averan tried to sit up but fell back in a swoon. Her head spun and sweat streamed from every pore.
“Get her some water,” one shaggy old man said. Soon, a half-naked girl brought water in her cupped hands, and gave Averan a drink.
“There's more blindfish in the stream,” the girl reported.
“Fish?” Averan asked.
Barris said, “Fish. It's about all that we have to eat. There's a river that runs underground, and the fish swim up through it. We have no fire to cook them with, and they taste like rancid oil and sulfur. But if you pick through the spines and the bones, there's meat on them.”
Averan's stomach churned at the thought. She still had her pack on. “There's supplies in my bags,” she told the group. “Apples and onions, cheeses, nuts and dried berries. It isn't much, but split it among yourselves.”
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