“By the way, Sir Bignuts doesn’t have anything against you in particular, does he? He doesn’t know your name?”
“He…threw me through a wall once.”
Fink stared. “So maybe not a first-name relationship on his end, but he could pick you out of in crowd.”
Harric thumbed his bastard belt as he unfastened it. “I’m a bastard, Fink. And Bannus is a big lover of the Old Ways, which are the ways of every bastard a slave, and every lord a king, and every immortal a king over kings, which results in a kind of worship of war and battle.”
Fink’s teeth glittered. “Sounds like a soul feast.”
“At first, maybe. But anyone they kill can’t be enslaved. And their biggest enemies they keep alive with the Blood for longer than ordinary mortal lives.”
“That all? I can see why you can hardly be bothered to care.”
Harric sighed. “You made your point. Why can’t you just be with me as soon as the sun sets?”
Fink grew very still, and something about his expression sent a shiver through the small hairs along Harric’s spine. “I try,” Fink said. His body, too, had frozen in its crouch, and his voice came from him without moving his lips, as if Fink himself were no longer present and his body was only a channel for his voice. “But when the sun rises on you,” he said, “I return to the Web, or to my moon. And time is not the same there. And distances are different.”
“Whatever you’re doing, Fink, it’s really unsettling.”
The imp’s head quirked to the side and his gaze went to Harric. “I’m an unsettling sort.”
“You were talking about time and distance. But tonight, when I summoned you, you were in your moon or whatever, and you came instantly.”
“Yes. A summoning is a powerful weave. It pushes a bridge through the time between us. But I think I’ve told you that even then I can’t always come when called. I’m not just sitting there waiting for you. I have…duties.” His face and hands twisted unpleasantly. “I must…answer to others.”
A long silence ensued, which would have been uncomfortable if Harric could get anything to matter. Fink broke it by giving a startling snap of his wings.
“We’ll work on your stamina tonight,” he said. “But first things first. We’ll start with your entrance into the Unseen.”
“My entrance.”
“Your non-entrance, I should say. Right now, when you enter the Unseen, you make a big splash and send waves through the strands that announce your entrance. That won’t draw Sir Bu-ass’s attention, but it draws attention in the Unseen, and that can be just as bad. There are things up there in the Web that are just as fond of eternal suffering as your big blue daddy is.”
“Can you not call him that? His name is Bannus.”
“So you have to learn how to enter the Unseen like a snake enters a pool, without a ripple.”
Harric closed his eyes and stifled another sigh. Nothing was sticking in his brain. It took enormous effort to stay engaged. “So…the other night when I entered the Unseen on the cliff above Bannus’s army…”
“That night you entered with a belly flop, and every nasty crawly in that quadrant of the Web knew something juicy and inexperienced just entered the Unseen. Lucky you were so near Bannus and his big blue freak horse, because none of them dared come near.”
Harric nodded. “Entrance and stamina. Anything else?”
“One thing. You need to control your oculus.”
“I control it fine.”
Fink waved a taloned finger over Harric’s head, and Harric’s oculus went totally flaccid. From a small window like a keyhole, it relaxed into a huge hoop that dropped around him like a shed robe.
“Peekaboo,” said Fink, as the spirit world rose bright and complex around Harric.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. A big fat O, big enough for any lesser sprite to reach in and scoop you out like a soft-boiled egg. You have to learn to lock that down. Got your attention, lover boy? Good.” Fink removed his hand and the oculus rose, depositing Harric back in the Seen.
Harric nodded. He took a deep breath that did nothing to fill the emptiness in his chest. “All right. Show me.”
*
An hour later, Harric crouched against a seedling log, lungs burning like he’d been running at top speed for a mile. His body, if not his spirits, felt invigorated. But he had to admit that even his spirits had benefited, and the pain of the void in his chest didn’t feel quite as strong.
“Again,” said Fink.
Closing his eyes, Harric concentrated on closing the oculus. It opened if he pushed his awareness upward toward it, and it closed if he drew away. But he’d practiced drawing away so much in the last hour that it had become weak and unresponsive to his will. Like an overworked muscle, it seemed his will had gone numb. Finally, by pushing his mind up to and back from the oculus, over and over, he managed to work up a feel for it again, and, with a final effort, drew it closed to a mere sliver. That had been the best he could do all night. A sliver. He could not yet shut it completely.
“You’re doing better, kid. Sweating like a whipped mare, but at least you’re working hard. My last partner? He didn’t like to work. What a silk-pantied waffle eater he was. Raised in privilege, you know? Made me to do it all, which is why I was all ribs when I met you.”
“Nice to have one mentor who appreciates my effort. Sir Willard thinks I’m lazy.”
“He thinks that because you’re always tired because you’ve been up nights with me.”
Harric sat against the soft moss of the log while he caught his breath. He watched Fink in the Unseen through the oculus, as the imp perched on a hummock of ferns. “Things will be a little more complicated again, now that Mudruffle’s back with us.”
Fink nodded. “I’ll stay in the Unseen. No sense risking the little kindling stick seeing me.”
“Abellia had wards at her tower. Can you set up wards around us to warn if anyone comes near us when I’m with you?”
“Sure I can. Not a bad idea.”
“Can you teach me to make them?”
Fink frowned. “I could, but you want to be ‘invisible,’ right? We call that Spirit Walking, and it isn’t one weave, it’s an entire school of mastery. And one of the most dangerous.”
“Could I learn both?”
“No. Spirit Walking will take everything you have. It isn’t like Spirit Reading or Loom Watching or Dream Crafting or any stuffed-armchair school of mastery. To spirit-walk you have to have more than just stamina: you have to know how to avoid the Dread and the Siren Sleep; you have to know how to use your nexus without disturbing the Web, and how to negotiate with a Spinner if you mess up her work. You have to know how to ferret those wards you mentioned, and how to avoid prowling sprites. Then there’s the whole smooth entrance thing and Web etiquette and hierarchy—souls, kid, you have to read the Web like a sailor reads the sea. Understand?”
Harric nodded. “Spirit Walking is what I’ve wanted. I just didn’t know its name.”
“Good. Glad you don’t want to be a tea reader. And Spirit Walking has a chance of keeping you alive the next couple days. Now, let’s get you to bed while there’s still some bounce in your step.”
When you climb back on a horse from which you have fallen—and are perched again upon the saddle—then you are most in danger of falling again.
—Arkendian saying
40
Blood Marked
Caris’s limbs buzzed with fire. Waves of terror ripped through her and she tried to lurch upright, but strong hands held her down.
“Stay still,” said Willard.
Her eyes focused to see the old knight close, leaning over her. His blue skin seemed black in the forest twilight. She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious, but by the look of the darkness around them, dawn still dallied in the east.
“Where—is she—?” she stammered. “What—?”
“You’ll live,” he said. “She blooded you.”
&
nbsp; “She—?” Red fury flared before her eyes, and her lungs sucked air like she’d breathe it out as fire. “The bloody bitch! I’ll rip her eyes out!”
“Steady,” said Willard, his weight on her shoulders growing heavier. “The rage will pass.”
Caris bucked, trying to rise, but Willard kept her solidly grounded. “Rag!”
“She’s fine.”
Caris sobbed in fury. “No she cobbing isn’t!”
“Control yourself. The Blood rage is in you, but it will pass.”
Panting with fury, she bucked again, to no effect, and growled in frustration. Just below her collarbone, where the blood tooth had plunged, a coal of fire burned steadily. When she put a hand to it, she found a thick scab that fell off as she probed, and under it a knot of hard scar tissue the size of half a walnut shell. “Treacherous bitch!”
“Yes,” Willard said. “She’s that. And your heart bears her mark now.”
Something in his tone gave her pause. “What does that mean? She thinks I’m her foal?”
He shook his head, eyes distant, as if deep in his memory. “I don’t know. Never happened before.” The words came out clipped, like he found them difficult to speak. “Couldn’t have predicted it.” He glanced into her eyes and leaned back, removing his hands from her shoulders. “Violet’s gone from your eyes.”
Caris rolled, pushed herself up onto her knees, and tried in vain to see the new scar under her fingers. She could feel her heart hammering beneath it.
Willard said, “Chaos Moon is truly coming.”
Molly stood thirty paces away, head high, violet eye glaring at Caris. It was a look of ownership. Of domination, patronage, and…something else. Kinship. A tremor of weakness unstrung Caris’s spine. She braced herself with one hand on the ground, her mind reeling. Like a mother.
“Never.” Caris spat in the dust. “I’ve seen what kind of mother you are.”
“Stay away from her,” Willard said, watching them both. “She is not your doom.”
He stood, offering her hand, and when she took it, he hauled her to her feet. Pulling her close, he did not release her hand, but forced her to touch eyes with him. His gray eyes flashed violet, and she sensed Krato lurking behind them, staring out with hatred and rage. Her own anger rose inside her, and she did not look away.
“She is mine,” Willard said. “She is my doom.”
She gave him a curt nod, but had to suppress a surge of defiance that wished to challenge Molly and fight her for dominance in the herd.
Willard’s mouth twisted as if he read all of it in her eyes, but after a long moment, he released her and returned to Molly’s side. “Mount up.”
Another thing occurred to Caris. “Do you think she might want Holly and me to bond?”
Willard stood very still, his back to her. Without turning, he said, “Do not wish it. Do not think it. It is not a doom to wish for.”
Caris watched, motionless, as he prepared to mount. Around them, twilight under the canopy brightened with the approach of dawn. The others would be rising back at camp. But on second thought, it wasn’t dawn that brightened the place, it was her senses that had brightened. Trees, ferns, moss, shrubs, and insects stood out in bright relief. The voices of birds sounded more clearly and brighter as they sang to the dawn. The forest itself now thrummed with the vibrations of life. The Blood had altered her senses.
And that thrumming wasn’t the forest. It was…Molly. It came from right there in front of Caris, and…inside her. Her own heart resonated with it.
Breathless, she took a step backward, and very carefully extended her horse-touched senses toward the unapproachable inferno of divinity she knew as Molly. But Molly had changed. Or Caris had changed. What her senses encountered was not the crackling house afire she’d met before. What she sensed now was less forbidding, somehow, like a bonfire, maybe—still dangerous, but safe for a mortal to compass at a distance.
Molly tossed her head and stamped, and the bonfire of her presence flared.
Caris pulled her senses back a little and smiled. Molly was proud. She’d sensed Caris’s touch and pushed back. Yet there was something else there as well. This…kinship she’d sensed. A new sense of herd—or, maybe more accurately, of pack, for a band of Phyros was anything but herd in the usual prey-animal sense. And pack-bond was a new notion. It surprised Caris that it did not repulse her. Instead, a potent mix of fear and excitement thrilled through her—a crackling bolt of possibility, of terrible, wonderful chance.
Rag let out a fearful whinny, and it drove a spike of shame through Caris. Withdrawing her senses entirely from Molly, she whirled about and hurried to her horse, reaching out with her mind to gentle her. To her horror, Rag had almost entirely walled her off; she could only sense the edges of Rag’s mind, and even that shallow touch sent Rag into full-blown panic.
“No, please, Rag,” she said. “It was her, not me. She forced it on me.” But Rag did not understand. How could she? She knew only that Phyros fire had infected her friend despite promises. Withdrawing her senses from Rag, Caris hurried to her side and tried to calm her with gentle sounds and soothing gestures, but the mare reared and pulled at her tether, eyes rolling and showing their whites.
Tears streamed down Caris’s cheeks. She got hold of the bridle and held Rag until she stopped panicking. After many long minutes, Rag calmed enough for Caris to stroke her and murmur comfort…the same as she’d done when she promised this would never happen again.
Promising again, she felt dirty and false, and her stomach sank into a mire of loneliness and self-loathing. If she rejects me for good, I’d deserve it. But if she trusts me just once more…
Willard rode past her. “Make haste. We have many miles ahead.”
In time, Rag allowed Caris to climb into the saddle, and she followed Molly at a distance that Rag could accept without the calming influence of Caris’s horse-touched senses. Far ahead, she could see Willard leaning over the front of his saddle to stroke Molly’s scarred neck and speak to her, though Molly seemed more interested in stealing glares at Caris. A brief surge of pity rose in Caris for Willard. After ten lifetimes together, were he and Molly unravelling? First Willard had refused her Blood with his oath to grow old and die with the Lady Anna, and now Molly had blooded another warrior.
Heat rose in Caris again. She would not allow Molly to doom her as she had Willard. She would stay clear of Molly and the taint of the Blood would fade. Already, the brightness she’d noticed in the world around her and the thrumming of Molly’s presence grew faint.
Her soul was steeped in shame on the ride back to their camp, but she made several decisions. First, she would stop bleeding Molly for Willard. Henceforth, he would have to bleed her himself, and Caris would stay well out of range of the monster’s blood tooth. Second, she would guard her mind against temptation and mental ambush. If Rag then gave her the chance, Caris knew their closeness would return to the intimacy and trust they’d had before, but if she failed, she sensed she’d lose Rag forever.
She sighed, hoping that, in a day, none of this would even matter. For all her cares would end if Sir Bannus rode them down like a herd of frightened deer.
Much depended on the mad immortal following her false trail south. If he did not fall for it, he could be upon them before they saw another sunrise.
The Great Swords slew Phyros in the Cleansing. Willard’s Belle. Beldan’s Karst. Great axes earned names, but fewer survive to this day. In the hands of Father Bundas, the axe named Jack’a’nape took the head of Vichis. That axe rests high on a wall of the throne room in Kingsport.
—From A Noble Historie of the Cleansing, by Sir Gundon Pond
41
Worsic
Harric woke to a foul smell and something prodding his ribs.
“Wake up, Harric,” said Father Kogan. “Near daylight, and the chimpey seen a campfire in the valley. Need to be ready when Will comes back.”
Harric opened his eyes to see the priest’s filthy
bare foot—the source of both the smell and the prodding—almost near enough to kiss. He sat up, hoping it would encourage the priest to move farther away, but it didn’t. “Thought Bannus was following the false trail south,” he said.
“Maybe he didn’t. Or maybe he did. And maybe he has scouts looking our way, too. Smart bastard like you oughta have a sense for a hunt, and think of all the chances.”
Harric nodded. Normally, he did have a sense. This morning, it drowned in howling emptiness.
So you’ll let this level you? he chided himself. Let Bannus catch you? Don’t be a fool.
“Willard taking the Blood?”
“Yep. What happened to your head?” said Kogan, peering at Harric’s bandage, but before Harric could dismiss it as nothing, the priest evidently dismissed it himself; he turned and motioned for Harric to follow. “Something I want to show you.”
Harric stared at the giant’s back as he lumbered toward the log circle they’d arranged at the center of camp. Probably no point in lying back down to sleep. The priest would only return to torment him again with his big toe until he rose. With a sigh, Harric put on his boots and rolled up his bedding. As soon as he’d stowed it with his pack, he joined Kogan.
He found Kogan on the largest of the logs in the camp circle. Across his knees laid his giant axe. As far as Harric knew, neither he nor any of the others had ever seen the blade of the weapon, for the priest had always kept it wrapped in oilcloth bound with rope. Now the oilcloth lay open to reveal a huge crescent wing of rusted steel counterbalanced by a hammer butt of solid iron, like an anvil.
As Harric took a seat, the priest transferred the head of the axe to Harric, and it felt like he’d laid a millstone across Harric’s knees. Harric grimaced. “What is this thing?” The weapon seemed too large for anyone—even a giant like Kogan—to wield in battle. And it stunk of burned resin.
Kogan’s small eyes sparked as he brought a lantern in close for Harric to examine the weapon.
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