He seemed weary and confused. “I had to stop Garse, t’Larien. He knew of the cave. Gwen to think of too. Ruark said that Garse in his madness had promised to hand her over to Lorimaar, and I called him a liar until I glimpsed Garse behind me. Gwen is my betheyn, and you are korariel. My responsibility. I had to live. Do you understand? I never meant to do this. I went to him, burned my way through . . . The grubs in the nest-heart were all over him, white things, the adults too . . . burned them, I burned them, brought him out.”
Vikary’s body shook with dry sobs, but no tears came; he would not permit it. “Look. He was wearing empty iron. He came hunting me. I loved him and he came hunting me!”
The glowstone was a hard nugget of indecision within Dirk’s fist. He looked down once more at Garse Janacek, whose garments had faded to the colors of old blood and rotting moss, and then up at Jaan Vikary, so very close to breaking, who stood pale-faced with his massive shoulders twitching. Give a thing a name, Dirk thought; and now he must give a name to Jaantony high-Ironjade.
He slid his fist into the darkness of his pocket. “You had to do it,” he lied. “He would have killed you, and Gwen later. He said so. I’m glad that Arkin got to you with a warning.”
The words seemed to steady Vikary. He nodded wordlessly.
“I came looking for you,” Dirk continued, “when you didn’t return in time. Gwen was concerned. I was going to help you. Garse caught me and disarmed me and delivered me to Lorimaar and Pyr. He said I was a blood-gift.”
“A blood-gift,” Vikary repeated. “He was insane, t’Larien. It is truth. Garse Ironjade Janacek was not like that; he was no Braith, no giver of blood-gifts. You must believe that.”
“Yes,” Dirk said. “He was deranged. You’re right. I could tell from the way he talked. Yes.” He felt very close to tears and wondered if it showed. It was as if he had taken all of Jaan’s fear and anguish into himself; the Ironjade seemed stronger and more resolute with every passing second, while grief came unbidden to Dirk’s eyes.
Vikary looked down at the still body sprawled beneath the trees. “I would mourn for him, for the things that he was and the things that we had, but there is no time. The hunters come after us with their hounds. We must press on.” He knelt by Janacek’s corpse for an instant and held a limp bloody hand within his own. Then he kissed the ruin of the dead man’s face, full on the lips, and with his free hand stroked the matted hair.
But when he rose again, he had a black iron bracelet in his grasp, and Dirk saw that Janacek’s arm was naked and felt a sudden pain. Vikary put the empty iron into his pocket. Dirk held back his tears and his tongue, saying nothing.
“We must go.”
“Are we just going to leave him here?” Dirk asked.
“Leave him?” Vikary frowned. “Ah, I see. Burial is no Kavalar custom, t’Larien. We abandon our dead in the wild, traditionally, and if the beasts consume what we leave, we do not feel shame. Life should nourish life. Is it not more fitting that his strong flesh should give strength to some swift clean predator rather than a mass of vile maggots and graveyard worms?”
So they left him where Vikary had dropped the body, in a little open space amid the endless yellow-brown thicket, and they set off through the dim undergrowth toward Kryne Lamiya. Dirk carried his sky-scoot with him, and struggled to match Vikary’s rapid pace. They had been walking for only a few moments when they came upon a high steep ridge of twisted black rock.
When Dirk reached the barrier, Jaan was already halfway to the top. Janacek’s blood had dried to a brown crust on Jaan’s clothing, and Dirk could see patches of it clearly from below. Otherwise the Kavalar’s clothes had turned black. He climbed smoothly, his rifle strapped to his back, his strong hands moving with assurance from one handhold to another.
Dirk spread the silver tissue of his sky-scoot and flew to the crest of the ridge.
He had just ascended past the topmost boughs of the chokers when he heard the banshee cry out briefly, not so far away. His eyes swept about, searching for the great predator. The small clearing where they had left Janacek was easily visible from above, a patch of twilight close at hand. But Dirk could not see the body; the center of the clearing was a living mass of struggling yellow bodies. As he watched, other tiny shapes flitted from the nearby woods to join the feast in progress.
The banshee came out of nowhere and hung motionless above the fight, wailing its terrible long wail, but the tree-spooks continued their mad scramble, paying no mind to the noise, chittering and clawing at each other. The banshee fell. Its shadow covered them, its great wings rippled and folded, and it dropped; and then it was alone, spooks and corpse alike wrapped within its hungry grasp. Dirk felt strangely heartened.
But only for an instant. While the banshee lay inert, a sharp squeak sounded suddenly, and Dirk saw a quick small blur dart down and land atop it. Another followed. And another. And a dozen, all at once. He blinked and it seemed as if the spooks had doubled. The banshee unfolded its vast triangular wings again, and they fluttered weakly, feebly, but it did not lift. The pests were all over it, biting at it, clawing at it, weighing it down and tearing it apart. Pinned to the earth, it could not even sound its anguished cry. It died silently, its meal still trapped beneath it.
By the time Dirk climbed off of his sky-scoot at the top of the ridge, the clearing was a mass of heaving yellow once again, just as he had first glimpsed it, and there was no sign that the banshee had ever been there at all. The forest was very silent. He waited for Jaan Vikary to join him. Together they resumed their wordless trek.
The cave was cold and dark and infinitely still. Hours passed beneath the earth as Dirk followed the small wavering light of Jaan Vikary’s hand torch. The light led him through twisting subterranean galleries, through echoing chambers where the blackness went on forever, through claustrophobic little passages where they squirmed on hands and knees. The light was his universe; Dirk lost all sense of time and space. They had nothing to say to each other, he and Jaan, so they said nothing; the only sounds were the scrape of their boots over dusty rock and the infrequent booming echoes. Vikary knew his cave well. He never hesitated or lost his way. They limped and crawled through the secret soul of Worlorn.
And emerged on a sloping hillside among chokers to a night full of fire and music.
Kryne Lamiya was burning. The bone towers screamed a shattered song of anguish.
Flames were loose everywhere in the pale necropolis, bright sentinels wandering up and down the streets. The city shimmered like some strange illusion in the waves of heat and light; it seemed an insubstantial orange wraith. As they watched, one of the slender looping bridges crumbled and collapsed; its blackened center fell apart first, down into the conflagration, and the rest of the stone span followed. The fire consumed it and rose higher, crackling and shrieking, unsatiated. A nearby building coughed dully and imploded, falling in a great cloud of smoke and flame.
Three hundred meters from the hill on which they stood, looming high over the choker-woods, a chalk-white hand-tower remained yet untouched by the blaze. But, outlined in the terrible brightness, it seemed to move like a thing alive, writhing and gasping in pain.
Above the roar of the fire Dirk could hear the faint music of Lamiya-Bailis. The Darkdawn symphony had been broken and transformed; towers were gone, notes missing, so the song was full of eerie silences, and the crackle of the flames gave a pounding counterpoint to the wails and whistles and moans. The Darkling winds that came endlessly from the mountains to make the Siren City sing, those same winds were fanning the great fires that ate at Kryne Lamiya, that darkened its death mask with ashes and soot and ultimately bid it quiet.
Jaan Vikary unslung his laser rifle. His face was blank and strange, washed by the reflections of the great burning. “How—?”
“The wolf-car,” Gwen said.
She was standing a few meters away, downslope from them. They looked at her without surprise. Behind her, beneath the shadow of a droopin
g blue widower at the base of the hill, Dirk glimpsed Ruark’s little yellow aircar.
“Bretan Braith,” Vikary said.
Gwen joined them near the entrance to the cave and nodded. “Yes. The car has passed back and forth over the city a number of times, firing its lasers.”
“Chell is dead,” Vikary said.
“But you’re alive,” Gwen replied. “I was beginning to wonder.”
“We are alive,” he acknowledged. He let his rifle slide from limp fingers. “Gwen,” he said, “I have killed my teyn.”
“Garse?” she said, startled. She frowned.
“He turned me over to the Braiths,” Dirk said quickly. His eyes touched Gwen’s. “And he was hunting Jaan, running at Lorimaar’s side. It had to be done.”
She glanced from Dirk back to Jaan. “This is the truth? Arkin told me something of the sort. I didn’t believe him.”
“It is the truth,” Vikary said.
“Arkin is here?” Dirk said.
Gwen nodded. “Inside the aircar. He flew from Larteyn. You must have told him where I was. He tried some new lies on me. I knocked him out. He’s helpless now.”
“Gwen,” Dirk said, “we’ve misjudged Arkin badly.” The back of his throat was thick with bile. “Don’t you understand, Gwen? Arkin warned Jaan that Garse was going to betray him. Without that warning, Jaan would never have known. He might have trusted Janacek, might not have shot him down. He would have been taken, killed.” His voice was hoarse and urgent. “Don’t you understand? Arkin . . .”
The fire put cold reflections in her eyes as she watched Dirk. “I understand,” she said in a thick, wavering voice. She turned back to Vikary. “Oh, Jaan,” she said. She held out her arms to him.
And he came to her and rested his head on her shoulder and wrapped his own arms tightly around her. And then he began to cry.
Dirk left them and walked down to the aircar.
Arkin Ruark was tightly bound to one of the seats. He was dressed in heavy field clothes, and his head was slumped down so his chin rested against his chest. When Dirk entered he looked up, with an effort. The whole right side of his face was a swollen purplish bruise. “Dirk,” he said weakly.
Dirk took off his cumbersome backpack and lowered it to the floor. He leaned up against the instrument panel. “Arkin,” he said evenly.
“Help me,” Ruark said.
“Janacek is dead,” Dirk told him. “Jaan lasered him and he fell into a tree-spook nest.”
“Garsey,” Ruark said, with some difficulty. His lips were swollen and bloody, and his voice trembled. “He would have killed you all. Utter truth, utter. Warned Jaan, I did, warned him. Believe me, Dirk.”
“Oh, I believe you,” Dirk said, nodding.
“Tried to help, yes. Gwen, she’s gone wild. I saw the Braiths take Jaan, I’d just come to join him, they were there first. Was afraid for her, I was. Came to help. She beat me, said I was a liar, tied me up and flew us here. She’s wild, Dirk, friend Dirk, all wild, Kavalar wild. Like Garse almost, not like sweet Gwen at all. I think she means to kill me. You too, maybe, I don’t know. She is going to go back to Jaan, I know it. Help me, you have to help me. Stop her.” He whimpered.
“She’s not going to kill anyone,” Dirk said. “Jaan is here now, and me. You’re safe, Arkin, don’t worry. We’ll set things right. We’ve got a lot to thank you for, don’t we? Jaan especially. Without your warning, there’s no telling what might have happened.”
“Yes,” Ruark said. He smiled. “Yes, truth, utter truth.”
Gwen appeared suddenly, framed in the door. “Dirk,” she said, ignoring Ruark.
He turned to her. “Yes?”
“I made Jaan lie down for a while. He’s very tired. Come outside where we can talk.”
“Wait,” Ruark said. “Untie me first, eh? Do that thing. My arms, Dirk, my arms . . .”
Dirk went outside. Jaan lay nearby, his head up against a tree, staring blindly off at the distant fire. They walked away from him, into the darkness of the chokers. Finally Gwen paused and swung around to face him. “Jaan must never know,” she said. She brushed a loose strand of hair back from her forehead with her right hand.
Dirk stared. “Your arm,” he said.
Around her right forearm Gwen wore iron, black and empty. Her arm froze at Dirk’s words. “Yes,” she said. “The glowstones will come later.”
“I see,” Dirk said. “Teyn and betheyn, both.”
Gwen nodded. She reached out and took Dirk’s hands in her own. Her skin was cool and dry. “Be happy for me, Dirk,” she said in a small sad voice. “Please.”
He squeezed her hands, trying to be reassuring. “I am,” he said, without much conviction. Between them lay a long silence and a great bitterness.
“You look like hell,” Gwen said at last, forcing a little grin. “Scratched all over like that. The way you hold your arm. The way you walk. Are you all right?”
He shrugged. “The Braiths aren’t gentle playmates,” he said. “I’ll survive.” He let go of her hands then and reached into his pocket. “Gwen, I have something for you.”
Within his fist: two gems. The glowstone round and rough-faceted, lit faintly from within, smoldering in the hollow of his hand. And the whisperjewel, smaller, darker; dead and cold.
Gwen took them wordlessly. She rolled them in her hand for a moment, frowning. Then she pocketed the glowstone and gave the whisperjewel back to Dirk.
He accepted it. “The last I have of Jenny,” he said as his hand closed around the echoing ice-drop and it vanished once again into his clothing.
“I know,” she said. “Thank you for offering. But if truth be known, it doesn’t talk to me anymore. I guess I’ve changed too much. I haven’t heard a whisper in years.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I suspected something like that. But I had to offer it to you—it and the promise. The promise is still yours, Gwen, if you ever need it. Call it my iron-and-fire. You don’t want to turn me into a mockman, do you?”
“No,” she replied. “The other one . . .”
“Garse saved it, when he tossed the rest away. I thought maybe you’d want to have it reset, with the new ones. Jaan will never know the difference.”
Gwen sighed. “All right,” she said. Then: “I find that I’m sorry about Garse, after all. Isn’t that curious? All the years we passed together, there was scarcely a day when we weren’t at each other’s throats, with poor Jaan trapped in between, loving us both. There were times when I was almost certain that the only thing that stood between me and happiness was Garse Ironjade Janacek. Only now he’s gone, and I find that very hard to believe. I keep expecting him to turn up in his aircar, armed to the teeth and grinning, ready to snap at me and put me in my place. I think that maybe when I really come to know it’s true, then maybe I’ll cry. Don’t you think that’s curious?”
“No,” said Dirk. “No.”
“I could almost cry for Arkin too,” she said. “Do you know what he said? When he came to me in Kryne Lamiya? After I called him a liar and hit him and broke him down—do you know what he said?”
Dirk shook his head, waiting.
“He said he loved me,” Gwen said, smiling grimly. “He said that he had always loved me, from the moment we met on Avalon. I can’t swear that he was telling the truth. Garse always said the manipulators were clever, and Arkin didn’t need to be a genius to see how his revelation affected me. I almost set him free when he told me that. He seemed so small and pitiful, and he was sobbing. Instead—you saw his face?” She hesitated.
“I saw,” Dirk said. “Ugly.”
“Instead I did that to him,” Gwen said. “But I think I believe him now. In a sick sort of way, he did love me. And he saw what I was doing to myself; and he knew that, left to my own devices, I would never leave Jaan, so he decided to use you—use all the things I told him, trusted him with—and get me away from Jaan that way. I suppose he figured that you and I would lose each other again the way we did on
Avalon, and then I’d turn to him. Or maybe he knew better. I don’t know. He claimed that he was only thinking of me, of my happiness, that he couldn’t stand seeing me in jade-and-silver. That he had no thought for himself. He says he’s my friend.” She sighed hopelessly. “My friend,” she repeated.
“Don’t feel too sorry for him, Gwen,” Dirk warned. “He would have sent me to my death, and Jaan too, without a moment’s hesitation. Garse Janacek is dead, and several of the Braiths, and innocent Emereli in Challenge—and you can lay it all on friend Arkin. Can’t you?”
“Now you’re the one that sounds like Garse,” she said. “What did you tell me? That I had jade eyes? Look at your own, Dirk! But I suppose you’re right.”
“What do we do with him now?”
“Free him,” she said. “For the present. Jaan must never suspect the truth of what he did. It would destroy him, Dirk. So Arkin Ruark has to be our friend again. You see?”
“Yes,” he said. The roar of the fire had diminished to a gentle crackling, Dirk noticed; it was almost quiet. Glancing back. in the direction of the aircar, he saw that the inferno was guttering out. A few scattered fires still flickered weakly among the rubble, casting a shifting light over the ruined, smoking city. Most of the slim towers had fallen, and those that remained had grown entirely silent. The wind was only a wind.
“Dawn will be here soon,” Gwen said. “We should be going.”
“Going?”
“Back to Larteyn, if Bretan hasn’t destroyed that as well.”
“He has a violent way of mourning,” Dirk agreed. “But is Larteyn safe?”
“The time for run-and-hide is over,” Gwen said to him. “I’m not unconscious now, and I’m not a helpless betheyn who needs to be protected.” She raised her right arm; distant fires illuminated the dull iron. “I’m teyn to Jaan Vikary, blooded even, and I’ve got my weapon. And you—you’ve changed too, Dirk. You’re not korariel anymore, you know. You’re a keth.
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