Children of the Blood (44 page)

“Second.”

“Did you honor our bargain?”

“I asked the question you wished asked.”

There was stillness, followed by a subtle movement of air that might have been the raising of an arm or the shake of a head.

“And did he answer it?”

For a moment, Stefanos pondered the question, considering the usefulness of a lie. Let Sargoth’s curiosity burn in him; let him be kept suspended in the state of ignorance that most annoyed him. He could not ask for Sara’s life.
Ah Sargoth.
“He did.”

“Then tell me. Tell me what he said. Let me know why he pursues this mortal with the power of four.”

“Perhaps. But it may be that I am Servant still, and will honor our agreement in the manner of His Servants.”

Silence, then sibilant breath across the air.

“You will tell me, Stefanos.”

“Yes.” He reoriented himself in his standing prison to face the direction the Second of the Sundered spoke from. He drew breath, although he did not need it—a habit so old it felt natural.

“He wants the Sarillorn because I will suffer for it.” And because Sargoth could not see his face, he allowed himself the grace of a pain too precious to have physical origin.

Darin’s voice was barely loud enough to be heard over the sound of shallow breathing and hurried footsteps.

“Where are we going?” Sara glanced backward, at the darkness over her shoulder. They weren’t being followed—not yet.

“The gardens,” he replied, praying silently that all had gone as Lord Darclan and Gervin had planned.

Gervin ...
He pushed the thought away almost easily; years of living in the Empire had taught him that much control. Time enough for mourning later, one way or the other.

“Here, Sara. It’s here somewhere.”

“What?”

“Exit.”

Sara shook her head; he heard her hair in the darkness. She had never left the castle by this door. Neither had he, but it was where Gervin had said it would be. He hoped it was open.

His hands shook as he found the latch in the shadows. A click, barely audible over the sound of their breathing, and the door slid open to the night sky.

“We have to run,” he whispered between his teeth.

She nodded, swinging the door shut behind them. “Wait a minute.” Leaning over, she pulled up the hem of her skirt, and with a quick decisive tug, tore it up the middle.

“Ready.”

“Right.” He took her nerveless hand in his and ran across the courtyard to the gate of the maze. Together they entered the first passage of the neatly clipped, twisting hedges.

“Darin, where are we going?”

“To the center,” he replied. He knew that she didn’t remember
her first encounter with the Gifting, but hoped that seeing it again would give her some hint of what to do. He had none.

“Left,” he whispered.

She nodded, looking nervously over her shoulder. The courtyard, or what she could see of it, was still clear.

“Left then.” With that she pulled Darin’s hand and the rest of him followed.

They ran, the soft grass providing slight relief from the noise their feet made.

“Left again.”

She made no reply, following his directions almost before he made them. She quickly lost count of the number of turns they took, or the direction they chose to run in, but noted that Darin’s directions became more sure and more confident as they ran. She paused to look over her shoulder a few times, but if pursuit was coming, she couldn’t detect it.

Then, at the last turn, Darin stopped short. She shuddered, hoping they hadn’t run into a dead end.

“Darin?”

“Sara, we’ve made it.” Saying that, he turned to look at her, the outline of his face barely visible. “I don’t know what happens next.” He felt inexplicably more afraid now that the last few yards lay open before them; a part of his mind had been sure they wouldn’t make it this far.

“Do we go on?” she asked him, raising her hands to cup his sweating cheeks.

“We can’t go back.”

She knew he was afraid; it was impossible not to feel it. Gently, although she knew their time was short, she drew him into a solid, warm hug.

“No,” she said softly. “We can never go back.”

And he knew she was not thinking of the here and now. His small arms shot out and wrapped themselves around her waist. Then he pulled away, almost embarrassed.

“Come, Darin. Whatever waits for us here, we’ll face together.”

He nodded, wordless, and turned the final comer. Sara followed closely behind.

They came together into the clearing and found the well. Darin smiled on sighting it; it still glowed faintly, a deep, bright green that lessened the night. He saw that the stone, pale and clean, seemed somehow newer, as if the well itself were a living
thing and had healed time’s injury. He started forward and stopped when Sara’s hand fell away from his.

“Bright Heart, no.”

“Sara?”

In the dim glow of the well, he could see the stillness of her face, and the whiteness of it. For a moment, she appeared to be carved from the same stone as the well itself.

“Sara?”

“Lernan.” Her lips were the only thing that moved.

Darin tried to take her hand and found it cold and stiff.

She pulled away, moving but still lifeless, and brought those cold hands up to her face.

“Lernan,” she whispered again. As if the word were a release, she began to move forward, walking like one caught in dream. Darin moved out of her way as she stepped toward the well. Her hands were shaking where they gripped the edge of glowing stone.

Lernan.
Leaning across the stone, she reached out to suspend one hand above the water’s surface. Where she stood, the light seemed to gather, and the water seemed to ripple just beneath her, as if trying to reach out. Her mouth moved again, completely soundless, as Darin stepped closer. He stopped before he could touch her, knowing that to do so at this moment would be wrong.

As if invisible string had been cut, her hand plunged downward to break the clear surface. It shattered, the sound of a splash mingled with a wordless cry. Her knees buckled as she pushed herself away from the support of the stone; the grass took her as she sank to the ground and covered her face with her hands. In the light, one of them was shining.

And that light hurt her. She looked at it, shaking her head from side to side.

Darin started forward and felt a hand at his shoulder. He spun around.

“No, child.”

In front of him, an old woman was standing. His fear fell away as he recognized her tattered clothing and her perpetually bent back. Her voice, though, still aged and cracked, held a strength that he did not remember.

And her eyes—her eyes were a green so deep they caught him and held him fast.

“I have been waiting for you child, for you and your companion. Wait by the Gifting. There are Servants of the Enemy
abroad this night, and in greater numbers than—” She shook her aged head. ”Wait. Your companion needs my aid.”

Then she was gone, floating across the grass to where Sara lay. She bent down, curved hands running across the back of Sara’s head, stroking her hair as if they had all the time in the world.

“Little one,” she said softly. “There is no time for this yet. You have come to me, and I have waited long to meet you.”

Sara’s face came out of her hands. Darin couldn’t see her clearly, but felt that at that moment the eyes of the Servant and the eyes of his lady were the same—aged, wise, and somehow beyond him.

“Elliath,” Sara murmured, her voice flat.

“Gone, little one, as you must know now. As is the Lady.” One crooked finger reached out to catch Sara’s chin before it folded again into the grass. “She saw it, child. She knew it would come and knew that she could not avoid it. But there was peace in it, in the end.”

“How long has it been?”

“Since the fall of Elliath, three hundred years.”

In a lower voice, Sara said, “And the other lines?” For she understood, bitterly and finally, Darin’s presence in the castle.

“Culverne was the last to fall. The land still remembers their influence. ”

“How long?”

“Five years ago.”

Sara’s eyes swept shut as she huddled against the grass. If she felt any sorrow at the loss, it was buried deeply beneath her rage.

The Gifting of Lernan—here.
She could not look up; the sight of it was a bitter accusation.
Three hundred years
. Belfas, Carla, Deirdre—all of these dead, buried, forgotten. She didn’t even know how they died, or when; nor could she ask.

Instead, she remembered Rennath, in all its dark glory; remembered the years she had spent traveling through Veriloth, tending to those she could aid and turning her back on those she could not. She remembered the Church and the Dark Heart, its attempts to destroy her, and the way she had stood, alive and defiant, to fly in the face of their God. And she remembered her laughter, her faltering determination, her ... love.

She stood quickly, then, shaking.

Her love for the—no. What had he said?

Her love.

She cried out again, a wordless denial, and wrapped her arms tightly around her body to stave off the sudden chill in the air. Centuries had passed her by, somehow, to bring her neatly to this pass. She felt a sharp and bitter ache, and the undeniable terror of waking from a nightmare only to acknowledge its truth.

“Sarillorn.”

She looked up, clutching her arms all the tighter around her body. In a dull voice, she said, “How?”

The Servant shook her head. “I do not know. But against all hope, you have come to me, to return once again my faith in the Lady’s vision. Lernan’s Hope.”

Hope?
She wanted to shout. “What must I do?”

“Leave here, and soon. The Servants of the Enemy are stronger, both in number and in power, than I.”

Darin stepped forward. “The Enemy has raised a barrier around the castle. Lord Darclan believed it would destroy us both to cross it.”

“It would.”

“Then how are we to leave?”

Raising one hand, the Servant turned to face the well. “Take power from the Gifting of God. Call it into yourselves to bring the barrier down.” It was clear to her that Darin did not understand what she said, so it was not to Darin that she spoke.

“Lady,” Sara whispered, “I do not think, if the barrier was built by the Enemy, that we will be able to contain the power necessary.”

“It will be hard, but what other choice do you have? To wait here as steward, until your return, I had to choose between the night and the day; and my power was of the Light. I am as you see me, Sarillorn; I could not wander, I have felt each minute of these several hundred years. I am ... old. I have not waited in vain.”

“For
my
return?”

“Yes. The Lady spoke of it to those of us who would listen. Remember that she named you Lernan’s Hope.”

“And what did she hope I would do?” Sara’s voice shook with emotion that could not be expressed with either words or tears; it was too strong and too new for that. “I have failed you all; the Servants of the Enemy and his Church—all of these reign because I should have—”

“I cannot say yet what she hoped for, Sarillorn. But if it eases your burden, know that she saw you here, and now, and that she
asked the Servants to select one among their number who would be able to wait the years until your return, tied to the mortal world.

“I was chosen. I have waited, and it has been hard, as was promised. No one should have to live so long with the weight of mortality upon them.” She spoke with the faintest hint of pity in her ageless eyes. Her voice grew softer and more somber as she continued.

“But my choice and my labor are not the hardest. I cannot tell you what to do, should you escape the trap of the Enemy, but I know you will not fail us. Child, the seed of the future is yours; how you sow it, and in what soil, must be your choice. For you are human, but of the Light, and in you the end to the ancient wars is possible.”

“And what must I choose?”

“You know the power of the Gifting. Use it. And if you survive this, search for the Woodhall. Do not forget this. The Woodhall.”

“The-but-”

“No. Now there is no time.”

Nodding, Sara came to stand beside Darin. Her face, still white and fixed, was barren of expression.

“Sara, what are you going to do?”

Without answering, she reached into her dress and pulled out a small dagger. It trembled, cold against her hand, before she gripped it tightly.

Darin watched as she drew a thin red line across her palm. Even her blood moved slowly, welling into perfect, tiny beads along the length of the cut. She gazed out over the water, her hands following her eyes.

She stood there, caught in the light, a small, dark shadow reaching for something beyond Darin’s vision. Then, with an almost curt shake, the hand became a fist, and the fist sank down. The breath of a silent prayer touched her lips as her skin broke the water.

She faltered once and then raised her head. Her green eyes shone brilliantly. They had never looked so cold.

The fist beneath the curtain of glowing water unfurled slowly.

Lernan, God.
It was a bitter invocation.
Will you answer now?

Water rippled up, a living pillar of God’s clear blood.

Only now. Now. Sara stood on the edge of a precipice, beyond
which lay the heart of Lernan. If only she dared look, she might see it revealed, might understand fully His hope and His desire. She could not look at it. Nor could she look away.