Part 31 (1/2)

They broke her, crudely and without mercy. Dispa.s.sionately, as though preparing her for disposal. But not as swiftly as she'd hoped. Before the end she begged and pleaded, just as he had predicted she would.

She died, not with an image of her loved ones in her mind as she'd boasted, but with one thought glowing faintly, the last to wink out.

They never asked my name.

'So. You've gone to a great deal of trouble to arrange this, southerner. Have your say and let me get back to my room. I'm supposed to be under guard, you know.'

Graceless. The Falthan priest reminded Duon of Ampater, his second on his first journey through the Azrain Mountains to Lut. Whatever goodness in Ampater had come not from his natural disposition, but from the demands of his bizarre southern religion. Impersonal, forced and unpleasant. The man had perished on the return journey, victim of an avalanche. Duon had not searched the snow too diligently.

'Then let us be swift,' said the Bhrudwan lad, earning a nod of agreement from his sister. Graceless as the priest was, these two were his opposite. Vibrant, pa.s.sionate, unfettered. Prepared to place other people, other issues, before their own desires.

'Very well.' Duon drew a deep breath: he had lived with this for months and, to tell the truth, felt a little reluctant to bring it out into the open. 'It has emerged that the three of us hear a voice in our head. It seems to be the same voice, that of a male magician. Agreed thus far?'

A sullen, almost reluctant grunt from Conal; two vigorous nods from the Bhrudwan siblings.

'Arathe and I believe we were in Andratan two years and longer ago, in the autumn,' Duon went on. 'She is certain she was there for at least a year, which, we think, overlapped with the few weeks I spent in the fortress. So, Conal, when were you there?'

The priest jumped, almost coming off the log he sat on. 'I didn't say I was there,' he said evasively.

'On your calling as a priest, or however it is expressed in Faltha, can you swear to me you have never set foot in Andratan?'

Conal brushed his long fringe away from his eyes. 'No,' he admitted.

'Very well, then. You were there, I don't care why. Here is our dilemma. It is likely we were infected during our stay in the Undying Man's fortress. We don't know who by or what for. And we can't even discuss it for fear of being overheard.'

'We can't even think it,' Anomer agreed.

'So here we are, meeting at night, on the a.s.sumption that even a magician needs to sleep, hoping we can-in as brief a time as possible-make sense of what is happening to us and decide what to do about it.'

'Don't forget what Lenares calls-called-the hole in the world. Our thoughts are being overheard by something desiring our deaths, it seems.'

'I agree, Anomer, and you are right to mention-'

'It tried to kill us, I think, in Faltha,' said Conal.

'There was a hole in Faltha?' Duon asked, surprised by the abruptness with which the priest joined the conversation.

'Must have been. It was when I first joined Stella-ah, Bandy-and her guardsman. We were on a boat in the Aleinus River and encountered a waterspout. I remember Bandy telling me later that she thought the spout was searching for something. It could have been me, couldn't it?' He licked his lips. 'We might be targets of the G.o.ds. Mightn't we?'

'Undoubtedly,' Anomer said. 'Arathe, and anyone in mind-conversation with her, has been hunted by the hole. We are the reason the hole pursues our friends, and why thousands of people have died.'

'Our choices are stark,' said Duon. 'Flight, keeping away from centres of population, hoping to remain hidden from the hole. Or to walk boldly towards it, hoping to destroy it, and those behind it, somehow, before it destroys us.'

'Why can't we just stop talking to it?' asked Conal.

'Do you really think you can keep the voice out of your mind? Given what your companions said about you, the voice has taken you over completely at least twice: once to save your companion-Stella, was that her name? Or Bandy? Nevertheless, once to save her and once to kill her.'

'They told you that? All of it? So...you know about her and Heredrew?'

'Know what? How can we know whether we have heard everything?' Duon leaned forward, his face close to that of the priest. The faint starlight revealed a sheen of sweat on the man's cheeks. 'What do we need to know about Bandy and Heredrew, aside from the fact that Bandy goes by another name?'

The priest paused a moment, then lifted his head and smiled at them. 'If I tell you, you must promise not to do anything rash.'

He's either a fool or a very clever man, Duon thought-or possibly both. 'No promises. Just tell us.'

Conal smiled slyly. 'I called her Stella, a slip of the tongue, but that is her real name, a name she does not want known. Do either of you children know the name of the Falthan queen?'

Arathe exchanged a blank look with her brother.

'Ah, then perhaps you know the name of the Undying Man's one-time consort?'

Arathe made a series of hand gestures to her brother, accompanied by moaning and grunting noises, the sort a simpleton would make. Though Duon knew the woman was intelligent and articulate in her own fas.h.i.+on, his cultural conditioning screamed 'lackwit'. With difficulty he put his prejudice to one side and instead marvelled at the siblings' ability to communicate, particularly given the darkness.

'Stella Pellwen,' said Anomer at once. 'Well known to anyone conscripted to learn magic in Andratan.'

More signals from his sister, this time frantic.

'Are you suggesting the young woman with Heredrew is the Dark Consort? Arathe says if the woman was still alive she would be ancient. Nearly a hundred years old.'

'I merely asked a question,' Conal said. 'You understand, if I am asked whether I have kept Bandy's secret, I wish to say with honesty I have told no one.'

Duon scratched his head. 'So, if she is the Dark Consort, then the man Heredrew-'

Anomer chimed in. 'The self-confessed powerful sorcerer-'

'Is the Undying Man himself,' Duon finished. 'But Heredrew looks nothing like the man I met in Andratan.'

'And sorcerers are bound always to present their true appearance to the world?' Conal asked. 'Did you see the Destroyer's true form in Andratan, I wonder?'

'The Destroyer?' Duon could not remember hearing the term.

'Falthan name for him,' Conal said, a defensive note in his voice. 'Understandable, surely, given the history, that Falthans see him as a tyrant. But I've been surprised since coming here how benign his influence appears to be.' This last seemed an unwilling confession.

'Lenares did say Heredrew was hiding something,' Anomer observed. Arathe signalled, and her brother nodded his head. 'We wish she was still alive,' he continued. 'Lenares' gifts would be of great use to us now.'

All of a sudden the magician's voice reverberated in Duon's head. What are you doing? I leave you alone for a moment and you share our secrets? Duon could feel the man's anger building: the back of his head began to warm with it.

You threaten me? he asked.

Indeed. I could burn your brain from the inside out. Make you throw yourself from somewhere high, or walk into a fire. Eat poisoned berries. Anything. I repeat: what are you doing?

By now the other three had turned to him.

'His voice is spilling over,' Conal whispered, his face white. 'We can hear every word.'

Duon was almost certain the magician knew nothing of the proximity-induced spillover between his three tools, but it took everything he had to avoid consciously thinking of it, or to speculate on how he might use the knowledge, as he conversed with his unwanted parasite.

And if his parasite could pick the underlying thoughts from his mind, he was already doomed.