Godslayer (34 page)

"Yes." In the darkness beyond the Font, the Shaper sighed and the shadows seemed to sigh with him. "He is coming, Tanaros Blacksword. They are all coming, all my Elder Brother's little puppets."

"My Lord?"

"They are always coining, and they have always been coming, since long before the world was Sundered, since before there was a world to dream of Sundering. I have always known. It is only the when of it that remains uncertain; even here, even now. But they are mistaken if they believe this is the end. This time, or any other time. There is no end, save in beginning. Even the Lord-of-Thought cannot change this pattern." The Shaper drew near, waves of power emanating from him. "Curious little raven," he said to Fetch. "Whose thoughts have
you
been thinking?"

Fetch chuckled.

"Ah." A long, silent moment passed between them. The dark ghost of a smile crossed Lord Satoris' ruined visage. "Thank you, loyal Tanaros, for bringing me this small guest." He inclined his head. "For this small kindness."

"My Lord?" Tanaros repeated, confused and fearful that his Lordship was succumbing to madness after all.

"It conies and goes, my general, the way of all things." The Shaper raised one hand in a gesture of dismissal. "As you, now, shall go."

"What of the Bearer, my Lord?"

"Malthus' spell hides him even from the eyes of the Souma." Lord Satoris shook his head. "There is nothing
I
can do. Would you have me tell you your business. Blacksword? Double your patrols in the tunnels between here and the blockage."

"My Lord." Bowing carefully, mindful of Fetch, Tanaros took his leave.

Aboveground once more, he made his way to the great entrance, where the Havenguard admitted him passage through the tall doors. It was another cold, clear night. Standing in the courtyard, he moved Fetch to his forearm and stood for a moment, thinking about the oncoming army, about a length of plaited rope, old Ngurra's face beneath the shadow of his sword, and the dark-skinned boy he had seen in the Ways, the questioning look on his face. He thought about Cerelinde in her chambers, praying for rescue, and his Lordship's strange mood, and about Fetch.

"Whose thoughts
have
you been thinking?" he asked the raven, stroking him with one finger. Fetch ducked his head, shifting from foot to foot. "What happened to you before you found me in the desert?"

For an instant, Tanaros saw himself once more through the raven's vision: a stark, noble figure with haunted eyes, mantled in passions that flickered like dark fire around the edges of his being, a doom he carried like embers in his cupped hands. Scarred hands and a scarred heart, capable of tenderness or violence, and behind him stars falling endlessly, lovely and dying.

Somewhere, a dragon roared.

"So be it," Tanaros whispered. "Go, little brother, and find shelter from the coming storm." Lifting his arm, he watched the raven take flight, black wings glossy in the starlight. "Good-bye, Fetch."

A small kindness.

His eyes stung; touching them, he found them wet with tears. Hyrgolf was right, he would feel better once the battle was joined. Gathering himself, Tanaros went to rouse Speros and give him new orders.

In the small hours of the night. Malthus the Wise Counselor sat silently on a narrow folding stool in a corner of Aracus Altorus' tent, watching the pupil he had taught for so many years pace its confines, restless and unable to sleep.

"Out with it," he said at last. "You cannot afford to ride into battle already weary, Aracus."

Aracus' gaze lit, as it had many times that night, on the coffer that held the tourmaline stone linked to the Bearer of the Water of Life. "It was dimmer," he said. "Not by much, but a little. Others did not notice, but I did. I saw it. Malthus."

"Yes." The Counselor folded his hands in his sleeves. "I know."

"Does it mean the Bearer is failing?" His tone was harsh. "
Dying
?"

"I cannot say, Aracus," Malthus replied quietly. "No more than I could before. I lack the knowledge, tor this is a thing that has never been done. But if you would ask what thought is in my heart, it is that the Water of Life dwindles as the Bearer perseveres. Dani used it in Malumdoorn to answer the Dwarfs' challenge of the Greening. He knows its power."

"Dwindles." Aracus repeated, following a path worn by his restless feet. He shot a glance at the Counselor. "By how much, Malthus? How much is required to extinguish the marrow-fire? How much remains? Enough?"

Malthus shook his hoary head. "I know not, and cannot say."

"No?" Aracus eyed him. "How many times have you withheld the fullness of your knowledge from me, Malthus? Your plots have ever been deep-laid. I wonder, betimes, what you fail to tell me now."

"There is nothing." Malthus touched the gem on his breast. Its clear blaze underscored the deep lines graven on his features. "Forgive me. Son of Altorus. The Lord-of-Thought's will is set in motion, and I, like this Soumanië I bear, will soon be spent. There is some sen-ice I may yet do to lure the Slanderer's minions from his lair. But I have no more knowledge to conceal." He smiled sadly. "
The unknown is made known
. There is nothing more I may tell you."

"Would that there was!" The words burst from Aracus. He fetched up before Malthus and flung himself to his knees, his face pale and strained. "Wise Counselor. I am leading men, good men, unto their deaths; Men, aye, and Ellylon and Dwarfs. Whatever else happens, this much is certain. And they are trusting me to do it because I was born to it; because of a Prophecy spoken a thousand years before my birth." He gave a choked laugh, his wide-set eyes pleading. "Tell me it is necessary, Malthus! Tell me, whatever happens, that it is all worthwhile."

A man's face, holding the phantom of the boy he had been, reckoning the cost of youth's dreams. How many generations had it taken for one such as him to come? Malthus the Counselor reached out, cupping the cheek of the boy he remembered, speaking to the man he had become.

"All things," he said gently, "must be as they are."

Aracus bowed his head, red-gold hair falling to hide his expression. "Is that all the comfort you have to offer?"

"Yes," Malthus said, filled with a terrible pity. "It is."

"So be it." Aracus Altorus touched the hilt of his sword; the sword of his ancestors, a dull and lifeless Soumanië set in its pommel. "Strange," he murmured. "It seems to me I have heard those words before, only it was the Sorceress who spoke them. Perhaps I should have listened more closely."

"We all choose our paths," Malthus said. "Unless you wish to follow hers, soaked in innocent blood, it is the better part of wisdom to pay her words scant heed; for such truth as they held, the Sorceress twisted to justify her own deeds. Yet there was more folly in her than evil, and even one such as she may have a role to play in the end. Do not discount Lilias of Beshtanag."

"You counsel hope?" Aracus lifted his head.

"Yes," said Malthus. "Always." He smiled at Aracus. "Come. Since sleep evades you, let us review the ways in which the Soumanië's power may be invoked and used, for it is my
hope
that such knowledge may yet be needful."

With a sigh, Aracus Altorus began to repeat his mentor's teaching.

The Gulnagel were in high spirits, and Speros' lifted accordingly. He was grateful for the assignment, grateful for the show of trust on General Tanaros' part. And truth be told, he was grateful to be away from Darkhaven and the presence of the Lady Cerelinde. It made him feel at once awestruck and insignificant, vile and ashamed, and between the General's fierce glare and Ushahin Dreamspinner's insinuations, it was altogether too unnerving.

This, now; this was more the thing. The camaraderie of the Fjel and a purpose to achieve. A warrior's purpose, serving Darkhaven's needs. He'd had only a small glimpse of the tunnels underlying Urulat when they'd traveled through the Ways. The Vesdarlig Passage was bigger than he could have imagined: wide enough for two Fjel to run abreast, tall enough for Speros to ride his tall grey horse.

Ghost, he had named her, because of her coloring. She moved like one, smooth and gliding. After his first mount had been lost in the Ways, Speros had thought he might never be given another such to ride, but the General had let him keep Ghost for his own. She bore him willingly, though Speros was uncertain whether she liked him. She had a trick of gazing at him out of the corner of one limpid eye as if wondering how he would taste, and her teeth were unnaturally sharp.

That was all right. He didn't know whether he liked her. He was, however, quite certain that he loved her.

They moved swiftly, the Gulnagel at their steady lope, with one pair scouting ahead and Ghost keeping pace with the others at a swift canter. Streaking torchlight painted the walls with a shifting fresco of light and shadow, and it felt strange and exciting, a little like the unforgettable ride through the Midlands when Ushahin Dreamspinner had led them along the paths between waking and dreaming.

How odd it was to think that the plains of Curonan were above them. In another day. Haomane's Allies might be riding over their heads and never even know it.

If there had been more time. Speros mused, perhaps it would have been better to
use
the tunnels rather than block them. How long would it take to move the army in a narrow column? He calculated in his head, trying to estimate how large an opening it would require to allow them egress, how far away it would have to be to enable them to assemble unseen, yet close the distance and fall upon the enemy before they could rally.

A sound from the darkness ahead broke his reverie. For an instant, it sounded like a hound baying, and Speros was confused, remembering a dusty road and a small farmstead, trying to steal horses with the General.

But no, there were Ghost's tireless muscles surging beneath him, and there was one of the Fjel grinning upward, eyes reflecting torchlight, and the sound was deep, far loo deep and resonant to issue from any hound's throat. It was the hunting-cry of the Gulnagel Fjel.

"Quarry, boss!"

Speros whooped aloud in triumph, setting his heels to Ghost's flanks. She surged forward, and the Gulnagel quickened their pace. They burst down the tunnel like a wave, prepared to sweep away everything before them.

"There, boss!" A taloned finger, pointing down a side tunnel. Speros wrenched Ghost's head, and she sank onto her haunches like a cat, skidding and turning, her iron-shod hooves sparking against the stones while the Gulnagel bounded ahead.

He followed them, their torches bobbing like fireflies, while the tunnel grew steadily narrower. Here and there it branched, then branched again, doubling back toward Darkhaven. The air grew hot and close. The feeling of triumph gave way to unease. As the walls closed in upon them and the ceiling lowered, he slowed Ghost to a trot, then a walk, slower and slower, until the walls of the tunnel were brushing his knees.

When he could ride no farther. Speros dismounted and felt along the wall until he found a crevice into which he could jam Ghost's reins. He continued on foot, stumbling over the tunnel's floor. Unlike the main passage, worn smooth over centuries, it was rocky and uneven. Sweat beaded on his brow, and he wondered why he had bothered to wear full armor in pursuit of a pair of Charred Folk.