Part 21 (2/2)

She longed to know how he raged inside the silence of his mind, l.u.s.ting to kill her for what she had done to him. She rarely took pleasure in the use of her power, but this time was different. This time she felt a great deal of joy in controlling this evil man, even though she dared not harm him. There was only so much she could risk.

”I knew you would be false,” she said to him quietly. ”You're unworthy of your lofty station, 'Honored Voice.' I was once a wretch of the Harridan, yet I have more honor than you can comprehend.

”You will forget what I have just done to you. When you think on it, you will recall only what you were told about the Words of Making and that my captive and I departed soon after. You will not think about us again.

”You will do one more thing for me. Write a letter granting me safe pa.s.sage through the Path of Ashes so that I may return to our homeland and my son. Do it now, and be quick.” She again took great joy in commanding Tolsadri, but her stomach fluttered with fear that she would be caught and her freedom would end before it truly began.

Tolsadri turned to the table, retrieved a pen and parchment, and quickly wrote out her grant of safe pa.s.sage, which he then sealed with his Ring of Bariq. She took it from him and hid it within her new clothes. New clothes for my new life.

”Go to sleep, Tolsadri. If your servant returns, tell him you do not feel well and order him not to disturb you until morning. Again, you will forget what I have done to you. Keep the knowledge of the Words of Making, but all else will vanish from you mind, including any desire to harm me.”

To her captive, she said, ”Come. We are leaving.”

As they made their way through the encampment, Balandrick wondered how long she would keep him alive. She no longer had any need for him. Killing him in the camp might draw attention that she did not want and delay her escape, but he did not hold out any illusions that he would live long once they cleared the perimeter.

Reshel, it seems I'll see you soon. I hope you'll be waiting for me inside the gates of Velyol. I've missed you dearly. He did not attempt to fight Algariq's control of him. He knew it was futile. It was time to resign himself to his fate. The idea of seeing Reshel again was a small comfort to him, one he held close to his heart, like a candle in a darkened room.

Algariq did not speak to him as they hurried through the rows of tents, but he could sense a change in her nonetheless. On their journey here, she had hunched her shoulders and lowered her head, trying to make herself as small and inconspicuous as possible, fearing to draw notice to herself and her station and the scorn and loathing accompanying that recognition.

Now she walked almost proudly, a new woman reborn in the ritual performed by the Exalted's loathsome Voice.

They retrieved her horse without difficulty. The soldiers scarcely looked at her when she spoke to them.

”Get onto the saddle behind me,” she commanded. ”Put your arms around my waist. We need to be far away from here come the dawn.”

She rode to the east, following the course of the river. By now full night had fallen. She did not speak to him, concentrating instead on their path along the edge of the trees. A few times he nodded off in the saddle. Strange, that he could sleep so close to his own death.

He felt remorse over his inability to keep his secrets from the soul stealer, but also knew there was no way to resist her. Her power over him was absolute. There was nothing he could have done.

What he experienced more strongly was a resignation toward his own death. He was a soldier. His country was at war, and he was in the hands of the enemy. It was simple: his time had come. He needed to accept it for what it was-the inevitable end of his life.

He also felt oddly elated at the thought of seeing Reshel again. He knew he should not be happy about his death; that was an unworthy thought, akin to suicide, an act frowned upon by the priests of Telros. There had been some debate about Reshel's death among the priesthood. Did her own suicide preclude her from sainthood? Was she condemned to the darkest halls of Velyol for that sin, or was the selflessness that compelled her actions upon the Sundering sufficient to redeem her?

In the end they decided that sacrificing herself so that others might live was reason enough to declare her a saint. There were historical precedents: the last, hopeless stand of Noren at the Battle of Kuldain's Crossing sprang to mind, and also Elg's leap from the Tower of Sumlar. The priests had not debated the point long. They knew of the people's love for the royal daughter and what she had done for them. To sully her memory was to flirt with open rebellion.

So he could not be happy about his own death, but he could accept it peacefully, and with grace. There was no point in anguis.h.i.+ng over what he could not change.

Algariq reined the horse to a stop. He could just barely make out the shape of a barn perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead of them, its thatch roof frosted with starlight.

”Get down,” she commanded.

As always, he obeyed.

”Lie on the ground.”

Now it comes, he thought. He hated that he feared the manner of his death. Would she slit his throat, or plunge a knife into his heart? He did not want to be slaughtered like an animal. If only he could fight back! He wanted to die like a soldier. Please, not like this.

She crouched beside his supine form. ”I have no desire to harm you,” she said. ”Such a thing would not be worthy of me now, of who I have become. You have done no harm to me, and in truth, you have helped me achieve my life's desire. If there is any debt owed, it is I who owe you.”

Her eyes glistened. Was she actually near to weeping?

”You said I did not understand mercy, and perhaps that was so. But I think I do understand it now. And even if I do not, I will at least follow the example that was shown to me.

”I give you your life back. Sleep now. I will hold you in my power until I am far from here, and then I will release my hold on you.”

Balandrick could scarcely believe what he had heard. She was going to spare his life. He was going to live.

Just before he slipped into unconsciousness, he heard her say, ”If I have brought harm or shame to you, I am sorry.” Then he remembered no more.

25.

The Telir Osaran, the Valley of Wizards, looked the same to Gerin as it had when he'd left Hethnost several years earlier. The great wall of the Hammdras enclosing the mouth of the wide oval valley; the Tower of the Clouds and the Tower of Wind rising from the summits of the hills into which the Hammdras was anch.o.r.ed; the high, sheer cliff on the valley's far end, from which the Part.i.tion Rock protruded, a long ramplike spur that bisected about a third of the valley; the Kalabrendis Dhosa, the seldom used gathering hall, built upon the flattened summit of the Part.i.tion Rock; the towers of the Varsae Sandrova. All of it was unchanged.

But the familiarity was not particularly comforting. To his surprise, he found himself unnerved by the sight of Hethnost. His mood darkened as they drew closer to the Hammdras, and his heart quickened its pace. This was the place where he had stolen dark magic in order to learn the location of the Varsae Estrikavis. He'd been under a powerful compulsion placed upon him by a Neddari kamichi, but over the years, as he'd pondered his actions, he wondered if he would have behaved the same had the spell never existed.

He'd broken into the vaults below the Varsae Sandrova and stolen the book of spells and devices of magic of the Baryas.h.i.+n Order, a now extinct group of renegade wizards devoted to discovering a path to achieve eternal life by any means necessary.

Gerin had blown the Horn of Tireon to summon Naragenth's spirit from the grave. It was during this encounter with the spirit that he first heard of the Chamber of the Moon, but the spell had collapsed before Naragenth could tell him anything else.

The collapse of the spell had caused an imbalance between the worlds of the living and the dead. Not only did people in Osseria begin to die at random as the power of the world of the dead moved through this world like a black wind, but a spirit named Asankaru had come through the doorway as well. Asankaru was the Storm King of a long dead race of beings called the Eletheros, who were annihilated in a brutal act of genocide perpetrated by the Atalari, an act lost to history until Gerin and Reshel had seen a vision of the murder of the Eletheros atop the Sundering.

He sighed, and a pain gripped his heart. Reshel had died to give him the power he needed to return Asankaru to the realm of the dead and seal the doorway between the worlds.

It had all begun here.

”You look troubled,” said Nyene.

”My memories of this place are not all good ones,” he said. Would he have acted the same without the Neddari compulsion? He'd been so driven then. He ached to achieve some lasting greatness, and finding the first amber wizard's lost library seemed the perfect means to achieve that goal.

If I would have acted no differently, then Reshel's death is truly my fault. I can't blame it on the Neddari spell. Perhaps his father had been right to blame him as he had. The king might have had more insight than he'd given him credit for.

A gloom settled over Gerin that was not dispelled by the appearance of Seddon Rethazi, the steward of Hethnost. The old man's moustache was as thick as ever, though Gerin thought he detected a bit more stoop to his shoulders.

”h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo!” he said as he and a number of the Sunrise Guard approached them. ”It's wonderful to see you, but I've had no word of your coming.”

”We did not send word, Seddon,” said Hollin. ”We were not expecting to come here.”

”I sense an interesting story behind this visit.”

”Do you know where we can find the Archmage?” asked Abaru.

”I believe she is in her manor house.” He took a quick count of everyone, then hurried off, barking orders about preparing rooms to a number of nearby servants.

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