Raj Ahten closed his eyes. He had nearly died at the hands of reavers when last he visited Carris. He had grown since then. In Deyazz, his facilitators vectored endowments to him. Raj Ahten could feel virtue filling him in waves, renewing his strength and vitality.
But he had gained more than just mere endowments. A hidden inferno burned inside him now, enlightening his mind. He consulted the flames.
Attack, Fire hissed in a voice like flickering flames. Many will die. Make a sacrifice of them to me, and I will give you victory.
“I hear and obey, my master,” Raj Ahten whispered.
He smiled. A battle was rising, such a battle as had never been seen before. He had some surprises in store for his enemies—men and reavers alike.
21
RAVEN'S GATE
Never fear a man based upon his outward form, but upon his inner spirit.
—Erden Geboren
By the time Erin reached Raven's Gate, the night skies had grown black with torment, and peals of lightning tore through the shredded clouds. A hard rain pelted down, pinging off helms and armor, dribbling beneath sur-coats, drenching capes. The horses splashed through puddles, and mists rose so thick from the fields that Erin felt as if she breathed more water than air.
Raven's Gate cast an imposing shadow on the horizon. Three enormous black towers loomed above the castle walls above the fields. The middle spire rose much taller than the rest, like the highest tier of an obsidian crown.
A broad river ran to the base of the fortress. Upon its banks, rich plantations and cottages sprang among the rolling hills, presenting a tapestry of fields and gardens.
Erin watched the castle drawing closer, lit by flickering thunder. She had never seen Raven's Gate, with its legendary Tower of Wind. Here the Wizard Sendavian had paid homage to the Powers of the Air in ages past. Here the kings of South Crowthen had guarded their Dedicates for nearly two millennia.
Here at least twenty thousand knights filled the fields before the castle with pavilions. Squires and cooks had kindled fires within every pavilion, so that they glowed with their own inner light, like gems at the base of a black mountain.
As King Anders rode near the pavilions, lightning flashed above. Dark siege engines squatted among the fields, ballistas by the score. Captain Gantrell blew his war horn, and knights sprinted from their tents with weapons drawn, preparing to barricade the highway.
As King Anders rode to a wall of human flesh, his knights and their squires shouted, “Anders! Anders of Crowthen! All hail the Earth King!” Heralds blew their silver coronets, squires banged shields as if they were drums.
The pavilions housed more than just the lords of South Crowthen. Erin saw merchant princes from Lysle all dressed in purple robes and shining armor; and dire Knights of Eyremoth looking pale as ghosts in white; while Duke Wythe of Beers out of Ashoven stood tall and haughty in his gray robes.
Not all among the camp were Runelords. Many archers, and camp fol-lowers, crowded close for a look at Anders, along with hopeful young men with naught but sheepskin for armor and cudgels for weapons.
Anders had emptied his realm, gathering all of his warriors here. His troops only awaited his command before marching across the border.
These lords and commoners alike stood with strange expressions, eyes gleaming with wonder and love for their lord.
Erin had never seen folk so ready to fight and die for their king. Indeed, it gave her pause. If indeed Anders did harbor a Darkling Glory's locus, and if she sought to strike him down, she saw now that she would never escape his realm alive.
King Anders's gray warhorse reared back and pawed the air. He raised his left hand and shouted to the horde of warriors, “I Choose you. I Choose you for the Earth.”
The people cheered and pounded their weapons against their shields. To the north lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, as if the very heavens sought to surpass the people's applause.
They believe that he's an Earth King, Erin realized.
“Gentlemen, I apologize for the weather,” King Anders said as the rain hammered on his helm. His men laughed. “We dare not ride in this storm at night, but be set for tomorrow. At dawn we ride to Beldinook to confront Lowicker's daughter, who even now marches forth to prose-cute her unjust war against the people of Mystarria. But the Earth has called me to be its king, and I must protect mankind. Erden Geboren fought for twelve years before the nine kings bent their knees and bestowed upon him the iron crown. I will not repeat his folly. Tomorrow, Lowicker's daughter will bow her head to me, or we will take it off!”
The men cheered wildly, and a bolt of lightning sizzled across the heavens, arcing from cloud to cloud as it tore at the sky. Thunder roared, and the ground rattled.
Erin stared hard at Anders's back. She didn't like his words. He would have either dominion or bloodshed. That wasn't the kind of Earth King Gaborn had been.
But a mad thought entered her mind: Perhaps that's the kind of king he should have been. Perhaps Anders is an Earth King.
Erin had still seen no evidence that Anders had any prescient powers. She had not heard his voice in her mind warning her of danger.
Dare I test him to learn if he is a true Earth King? she wondered. If I try to stick my sword in his back, will he feel it coming? And even if I did test him, would it be a true test? What are the powers of a Darkling Glory's locus? Can it mimic those of an Earth King? A great weariness was on her. She had been fighting fatigue all the long day as she rode south. Her eyes felt heavy and full of grit, and her mind seemed to be turning like an ungreased wheel, slowly grinding toward ruin as the sands wore it down. She didn't trust her own judgment now.
And what if I kill him? she wondered. I have no proof that he harbors a locus. He might be nothing more than a madman. It would be a small deed, a dirty thing, to kill a man for his madness. And if he's not mad, if indeed he does have a locus in him, what then? I can't kill it. It will simply find a new host.
Either way that she looked at it, Erin could not raise her hand against the old king, for his death would avail nothing. It was his unmasking that she needed.
The men continued to cheer as King Anders rode into Raven's Gate. Erin followed in her sodden clothes, fighting sleep. The castle wall rose high, some eighty feet, and as Erin rode under the arch, she felt as if darkness swallowed her.
They continued up a short lane, to the base of the Tower of Wind. Footmen took charge of the horses. Erin got off her mount, stiff legged, and made her way into the keep.
Celinor took her hand, looked down at her smiling.
King Anders told them, “Freshen up before dinner. I'll meet you in the tower loft. We have much to discuss.”
Celinor led Erin up six flights of stairs to a kingly bedchamber. A small fire flickered in the hearth. The room felt cozy, almost overwarm. At the door, Celinor ordered a maid to find suitable dry clothing for his wife, then he stripped off his wet clothes and armor. He stood naked for a moment, wiping down his armor in front of the fire. Outside, thunder raged.
Erin took off her own soggy riding cloak, leather armor, pants, and boots, but left on her long undertunic. As she hung her things by the fire, Celinor set down his oil rag and took her in his arms.
“Let's try out the bed. My father won't mind if we're a few minutes late for dinner.”
“We'll not be needing a bed,” Erin said. “You've already got your seed in me.”
Celinor's face fell, as if he were hurt. “You're angry about something, aren't you?”
“You told your father about the sending. You told him that Paldane is my sire. You broke every confidence I've ever placed in you! And now you wonder that I'm angry?”
“I—” Celinor began, “I didn't mean to hurt you. Of course I told him everything. My father and I keep no secrets. I never have to worry what he's thinking, for when he is with me, as soon as a thought enters his mind it comes out on his tongue.”
“That's no excuse,” Erin said. “You can control you
r own tongue.”
“I'm trying to win his confidence,” Celinor argued. “How can I hope that he'll trust me with his innermost thoughts if I don't seem to reveal my own? If he is mad, I need to know it. I need proof of it.”
“You went to Heredon as his spy,” Erin said. “Tell me, are you still his spy?”
“Of course not,” Celinor said. “But he must believe that I am.”
“And what of me?” Erin demanded. “He sent you to learn my lineage. Did your father demand more of you? Did he tell you to be courting me?”
“Now you're the one who is talking madness!” Celinor said. He backed away a step and shook his head.
“You think I'm mad?” Erin said. “You told me that you thought your father was mad! Is everyone mad but you?”
“You've met my father now,” Celinor said. “What do you think? Is he mad? Or is he the new Earth King? Is it possible that he is everything he says that he is?”
“I think,” Erin said, “that your father is either a madman or is infected by a locus.”
“And what of the Nut Woman?” Celinor asked. “She's an Earth Warden, and she backs up his tale.”
“I don't know.” Erin's head was whirling. She looked hard at Celinor. “I asked you a question a moment ago, and you never answered.”
“What question?”
“I asked, ‘Did your father send you to court me?'”
“What kind of question is that?”
“An honest one, from the heart. You say that you and your father keep no secrets. Will you keep secrets from me? Tell me, did your father ask you to court me?”
Celinor's smile faltered. She saw now that he had been trying to smile in the face of her accusations. He stood gazing at her for a long moment, sadness and worry warring in his countenance. “Yes,” he admitted. “He thought it would be well if I courted you—that is, if indeed you were Gaborn's kin.”
Erin turned away, her back going rigid with anger.
Celinor put his hand on her shoulder. “But that's not why I wanted you,” he said. “I wanted you because you're strong, smart, and beautiful. From the moment I met you, I fell hopelessly in love with you.”
He turned her around, and she thought that she could detect sincerity in his eyes. She stared hard at him and wondered, What kind of man are you? Dare I speak my mind to you ever again?
No, she decided, I can't.
It was all she could do to keep herself from killing him.
Only one thing held her back. She didn't know who was more dangerous, the father or the son.
That night, Erin Connal went to dinner in the uppermost chamber of the Tower of Wind, high above the plains. Six hundred steps the staircase climbed.
From time to time, as she ascended the winding stair, Erin would pass archers’ slots. From these she could peer below.
To the south, ages ago, the Great Rift had sliced the land in two, so that Raven's Gate roosted on the lip of a cliff. From these lofty heights, one could peer down onto the green plains of Beldinook. An ancient road climbed the cliff, weaving this way and that, until it met the city gates.
By the time Erin reached Anders's chamber atop the tower, she could see for miles. The wind whistled around the tower, and lightning snaked across the heavens.
Anders was not in the room when Erin and Celinor entered. A fine feast lay spread about on a small table, but Anders had left it. He'd thrown open a door, and stood out on the parapet, the wind lashing his hair.
He grinned when he became aware of Erin and Celinor, and came in. “I was admiring the view of Beldinook,” he said, “as Sendavian must have in his day. I cannot imagine that one of the wind-born like him would have been able to stay inside on a night like this. Come, let's to dinner.”
The king sat at the small dinner table in the center of the room and carved from a venison roast. He held silent all through dinner, and did not look up at Erin, nor at Celinor, who often exchanged curious glances.
Erin found the silence to be disquieting.
“Father,” Celinor asked after several minutes. “Did you want to talk to us?”
King Anders peered up at them as he had forgotten that they were in the room.
He is mad, Erin thought.
“They say that bad news should never be taken with dinner,” the king answered, fumbling his fork, “for it is not easily digested.”
“You have bad news?” Celinor asked.
Anders swallowed a piece of venison, nodded his head, and would say no more. Indeed, he merely peered at his dinner, as if a bite of turnip or mouthful of wine might supply an answer to the question. After a long moment, he continued eating.
Erin's stomach was tight with hunger, so she shoved a few bites in her mouth. When the king finished, they all pushed their plates back.
King Anders smiled, and gave his son a pained look. “As you know, I've played Gaborn falsely in the past. I asked you two here, I asked Erin here, so that I could apologize.”
“Exactly how did you play him falsely?” Erin asked.
“I sent messages to King Lowicker of Beldinook and warned him to beware the pretend Earth King. I also plotted with Internook to invade Mystarria, and these two lands granted support. Others were more reticent to rush to judgment, though, as you can see, many a foreign lord has come to join my army. Only one man alone I did not seek to entice into my war—Raj Ahten, for I feared that he was beyond even my power to redeem.
“But since the Earth called me to be its king, my heart has grown uneasy. You see, every man, woman, and child is precious to me now. Every one of them. Yet I've sent the kings of the earth to battle Mystarria. Without endowments to protect them, the folk of Mystarria are doomed. My only hope is that we can reach them before Gaborn's enemies do, and thus bring enough aid to turn the tide of war.”
Erin drew close and suggested, “If haste is needed, then let's ride now, as fast as we may.”
“My heart forewarns that we would lose many men if we ride tonight,” King Anders said. “Even if we could ride in such a storm as this, would our horses have the legs to fight when we reached Mystarria? Would our warriors be fit? I think not. Better to rest briefly. Still, haste is called for, and I am making haste. I've sent messengers to Lowicker's daughter, and to the warlords of Internook, begging them to withdraw. But I cannot guarantee that these two will stay their hands. Rialla Lowicker is filled with rage at her father's death, and the warlords of Internook are ruled by greed, not reason. So we must be prepared for battle. A ragged band of tired knights would avail little. A powerful army must ride from the north, like a mighty wind, blowing succor to the people of Mystarria. We must save Mystarria.”
He peered at Erin for a long moment, and said, “So I have given you cause to mistrust me. I only ask one thing of you. As my new daughter, I ask your forgiveness, and your indulgence, as I struggle to make recompense for my wrongs.”
Erin studied King Anders. His face was skeletal, and he sat leaning for-ward, like a child with his elbows on the table. His perpetual expression of worry so mirrored Gaborn's that Erin could almost imagine that the two were one. She seemed to feel the efficacy of his words. He really did want to save Mystarria.
Yet nothing that he had yet said or done indicated he was anything more than a befuddled old man who hoped to undo the wrongs he had set in motion. Nothing proved that he was an Earth King.
“All right,” Erin said. “I'll give you a second chance.”
After dinner, Erin left Celinor to talk with his father and went to her room. Her eyes felt full of grit, and all of her muscles were so worn that that she knew she could not last any longer. She would have to suffer through her nightly dreams.
She sharpened her long dagger, then lay on the big four-poster bed, placing her blade under her pillow. The bed felt softer than any cot she'd ever slept on, and she felt almost as if she were sinking into the mattress, sinking and sinking but never quite falling.
She woke in the owl's burrow. It was dawn in the
netherworld, and the storm that she'd felt earlier in the day had passed. So much sunlight slanted under the canopy of the great tree and into the hollow that she got her first clear view of the owl's den.
It was much like a hollow in any earthly tree. Knobby roots thrust from the floor where they would, while others made shelves above the door. But this was no animal den. Erin could see signs of human habitation. A woman's face had been carved above the opening to the burrow, and a similar image had been carved above a passage farther back, round the bend of a root.
A pile of bones glinted under the roost where the owl usually sat. Erin went to it and gazed down. There were strange bones, the remains of monsters—something like a giant frog with antlers, and another creature that might have been a fawn, if not for its wide-set eyes and ungainly fangs. Feathers and dust lay in piles on the bones, along with the white excretions of the great owl.
Erin peered round the corner, to the woman's face carved above the pas-sage. Her face was beautiful, surreal. Her long hair cascaded down, framing the doorway. Beyond it, a tunnel angled down into the ground, with flag-stones paving the way, forming a stair down into the darkness.
Erin breathed deeply. The morning air smelled sweeter than a summer field, but a hint of musk and deep places added spice to the odor. She pinched herself, and felt pain. She felt awake. Indeed, she'd never felt so alive.
In tales of the netherworld, it was said that in the beginning, all men were Bright Ones who lived beneath the First Tree. Erin wondered if this vast tree was indeed that tree of legend, and if the hole that gaped before her led down to some forgotten home. Forgotten or abandoned.
Perhaps the Bright Ones are all dying off, she told herself. Surely, if the flocks of Darkling Glories I saw flying in my vision yesterday are real, then the end of the Bright Ones cannot be far off.
She squinted, searching the walls for a sign of an old sconce with a torch in it, or perhaps a fireplace carved into a nook where a faggot might lie. But she found nothing to light her way.
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