Dust and Light (50 page)

“No. But neither are you that I can tell. I’d not have him dead.” Though to have Pluvius
elsewhere
was the finest gift of fortune’s goddess. “Now your turn for a question.”

He shook his head as if to clear it. “Where did you meet her, this sentinel marked with silver?”

“On several occasions when I invoked my magic—that which you say twists the fabric of the world, which I swear I did not know and did not intend—I was transported to another place, one unfamiliar to me. A rocky hillside, green and barren with five—”

“Five promontories that protrude into the sea, each one ridged with white stone.” I’d not thought his eyes could open wider.

“Yes. On two of those occasions, she was there. She called it the Everlasting and said she could either lead me astray or offer me sanctuary.”

“Impossible.” His whisper was for himself, not me. “
Sanctuary
. Found by a human.”

So urgent, so passionate was his fervor, I voiced a question without considering the others clamoring inside me. “So this place she called the Everlasting is the sanctuary?”

“The Everlasting is not a place. The Everlasting is
all
—the human realms; Aeginea, which is the true land, and the great ordering that lies beyond the lands we walk. Sanctuary was—is—”

He glanced up, as if taking note of me for the first time. He hesitated, frowning. But any disciplined pureblood would recognize the sharp exhale and the moment’s silent invocation when he chose to say more than he should.

“Sanctuary is a memory that encompasses naught but the name itself. There are a few others, places or names we believe of great importance, though we cannot say why or why we cannot remember more about them. Thou’rt certain she spoke that word and that it is where the humans went this dawning?”

He had moved beyond crude threats and bargaining. I answered in kind, telling him of the hidden door marked by a white hand and blocked with patterns of light, and of what the sentinel had told me. “And until then, she said I could not pass.”

“Clearly the sentinel has closed her ways to thee, just as we have done, though I know naught of this path she requires. But how are her pathways not of Aeginea? I must speak with the Archon. We may have use for thee after all to smooth this confusion.”

He turned his back, his gards shimmering, fading. . . .

“Wait! You can’t go yet. You’ve no right to
make use
of me. Give me answers, tell me what you want of me, and then I’ll choose to help or not. But I must know who is the woman with the silver marks—and who is she that companioned you in the city. You spoke before of dangers, but I thought— You’re not going to harm the humans who crossed these boundaries?” Fear and anger and exhaustion had me shaking. “You damnable villain gatzé, you
must
tell me where they’ve gone.”

He strode across the muddy rocks and ripped the oak limb out of my hands. “I need tell thee nothing, Remeni-son. Thou’rt ignorant and proud, like all humankind, breaking, meddling, and strutting as if all the Everlasting is thine to rule. Let me show thee a touch of the torment we have long crafted for the human who twists the boundaries. Perhaps it will humble thee to imagine its fullness until the end of your days.”

I spun from his grasp and ran. But when my feet skidded out from
under me on a mud-slick rock, he pounced and pinned me to the slab. Raising his head to stretch his throat, he sounded the screech of an eagle diving for prey.

For a moment I was paralyzed, sure my bones had shattered with the sound. When he rubbed his thumb on my lips, I could not stop him.

Nasty. Bitter. As I wiped my mouth and spat, small feet scrabbled on my legs. Chittering shrieks accompanied stinging nips at my ankles . . . through my hose. Rats! I kicked at them. Tried to scramble away. But I needed my hands to brush away feathery spiderwebs that blurred my vision, to swipe at the fleas, ants, and spiders under my clothes, crawling into ears and nose. Disgusted, horrified, I curled up in a ball, batting and flailing. Blood seeped through my clothes. Gods, it would bring more rats.

Real? Imagined? It made no difference. Mud and smoky sky swirled together until I could not tell up from down. I might have been plummeting
upward
or soaring into solid earth. Reason melted like lead left too close to a forge.

“Please.” My muscles seized as I tried to keep from falling, while slapping at spiders and vermin. “Make it stop!”

The Dané stood above me, coolly watching me writhe and whimper. As howling madness swelled inside me, he crouched down. “These things only can I tell thee, Remeni-son.” Surely it was kindness softened his speech. “We know nothing of this place you saw, save what comes from a wisp of song that speaks of a five-horned land and the sea. But that is a song of sanctuary, and
sanctuary
is a word we honor with the same regard as the Law of the Everlasting and the Dance that is our purpose and our glory.”

A hint of better humor played over his sober mien, like darting sun glimmers in the wood. “My companion of our first meeting has vouched for thy ability to learn. I choose to believe her. But trespass again before we come for thee, and thou’lt have these vermin with thee always. Be sure we
shall
come.”

He brushed his hand across my eyes. A blanket of peaceful dark enfolded me as his last words faded. “The matter of silver gards does not concern thee. Nor does the matter of my companion.”

M
y eyes flicked open. I
sat on damp ground, my back to a wide-boled tree. Yellow-brown smoke choked the windless daylight, and I could scarce see, much less breathe without coughing. Shouts, drumbeats, and trumpeting horns both near and far spoke of siege.

There was no sign of Pluvius. No sign of the Dané, either. With a frenzy of horror, I brushed at my face and neck and soiled clothes, though neither sense nor inspection revealed vermin, spiders, blood, or bite marks. Every muscle and joint ached.

Had it been an hour or a day or a year since encountering the Dané? It would take an hour of concentration to reconstruct our exchange. But I clung to his last mercy and scarce controlled a sob of gratitude. Sanctuary was holy to his kind. Those who had crossed this boundary . . . perhaps they would be all right.

I needed to run—fast and far. But I could not leave the hirudo without making sure Juli had crossed the portal. If ever the gods had mercy on fools and lunatics, perhaps on this morning I could follow her through it.

Keeping behind the line of willows, I scurried back toward the charred settlement. When the ramparts became too steep to traverse, I adjusted my mask, pretended my clothes were silk and brocade, and strode with proper hauteur onto the path.

Little was left of the Ciceron settlement. Here and there a cracked hearthstone protruded from charred rubble. Dying rills of flame hissed. Puddles from the night’s rain had turned to tarry mud. Gouts of steam and the heavy stench of ash rose from my left, where the soldiers had fired every shack or shed that blocked the outer wall. They were here to defend Palinur. The Cicerons had just been in the way.

Armed men were everywhere. Shouted orders sent archers and newly armed pikemen swarming up the wall stairs.

“Who goes there?” The halberdier who barred the path with his pole looked younger than Juli and more nervous than I felt.

I flicked sparks from my fingers. “Avert your eyes, ordinary, and lower your weapon. Where is the mage who’s come to quench the fire? I’ve messages from the Registry.”

He dropped his gaze and pointed to the outer wall.

“Have any prisoners been taken?”

“None, lord . . . sir. We were told no prisoners.”

Swallowing hard, I strode past and, as soon as I could be sure he was not looking, dodged into the strip of shacks and sheds that hugged the Elder Wall—the inner lane where the Ciceron commons house was tucked away. Wary pikemen were kicking down unburnt huts and flimsy shelters, hunting any remaining resistance. The only Cicerons I saw were dead.
Less than a dozen altogether, piled in a heap—Jadia, the dicers. As I peered out from behind a charred baking oven too hot to touch, soldiers threw another body atop the pile. It was Demetreo, one side of his head caved in.

Goddess Mother embrace them; Lord of Light honor their sacrifice. And please, please, please, let Juli be safely away.

A pikeman tore off the headman’s earrings. When I stepped from my hiding place, he blanched and darted away. Would I knew how to heat the false gold and sear the skin from his fingers.

Search parties had passed the commons house three times and never given it a look. Only when I held it steadfast in mind did my attention stay fixed long enough to stretch out my hand.

The red door swung open. All was as I expected. No sign of fire or slaughter. Dice lay idle on the small table, and a scattering of dropped items littered the floor—an empty cup, a bent spoon, a bundle of rags. The hearth was cold, the lamps dark.

Oldmeg’s chair remained where I had last seen it, and the
Naema
herself sat straight and unbowed, bloody knife in her lap, blood drying on her wrists and breast. The light had long left her eyes. Behind her, the white hand glared stark above the shifting colors of the portal. Enchantment shimmered inside me like moonlight on rippling water, taunting me with beauty and warmth and scenes I could not touch.

I tried, of course. Oldmeg’s blood yet stained the carved markings on the arch. The first attempt was sufficient to remind me that the scrapes and cuts on my hand did not deserve the word
pain
. Yet pain alone would not deter me.

I pushed harder, trying to force the barrier with hand and then shoulder, burying my mouth in my sleeve as the enchantment threatened to dissolve my bones. I pushed until my teeth felt like molten lead and my skin like the cinders outside the commons house. The tapestry flexed inward slightly, but it would not yield. And I’d no magic to try more.

Pureblood searchers would be hard on my heels, but I could not leave Oldmeg to rot in her chair. I fetched in Demetreo and laid them out side by side. I’d no water to wash away their blood and no oil to anoint their fingers or silk to wrap them, as was proper for those who could work magic. And Ciceron death customs were a mystery. So I simply wrapped the old woman in her woven mantle and Demetreo in my cloak and commended them and their dead comrades to the Goddess Mother and the god they called Valo.

When my prayers were done, I sat back on my heels and watched the portal’s image shift again . . . and yet again. Once I’d have sworn I saw a crowd of motley women and men with dark braids and dangling earrings, and perhaps one slender girl in a wine-colored cloak. But that was likely a wishing dream.

“Where are you,
serena
?” I whispered, willing my words to penetrate the swirling beauty as I could not. “Forgive me for sending you away yet again, but this was all I knew to do. I swear on the spirits we hold dear, I will find you.”

My head sagged to my knees. Weighed down with grief and weariness, I felt very much alone.

But I dared not linger. A whisper of magic restored the portal’s shielding enchantment I had ripped away a tenday past. When the smoke-stained plaster looked undisturbed, I snatched up a lamp from the wall, threw a tattered rug over my shoulder, and pulled off my mask. Everyone was looking for a pureblood. I’d best learn how to look ordinary.

B
eyond the red door, the hirudo had already become a noisy staging ground for Palinur’s defenders. Shouts rang out from atop the wall. Mules lumbered past, hauling in fuel and supplies. Men and boys ran hither and yon, bearing news and orders, shields, water butts, and cauldrons. Serious men counted arrows, honed swords, or used the smoldering embers of the hirudo to stoke blazes for boiling tar and oil. Drums rumbled like distant thunder from the east. Palinur was under siege.

The same young halberdier yet guarded the path. In the smoky shadows of trees and willow thicket, it might have been midnight. “I’m bringing supplies for guards at the slot gate,” I said before he could challenge me. “Captain’s setting up a permanent guard, as they see it vulnerable. Do you need a lamp? I’ve extra. Or this flea-bitten rug?”

“Lamp’d be fine. Dark as a sheep’s belly down here.”

I shoved the enchanted lamp into his hand and hurried on.

Not a sound penetrated the silence around the piggery, so close with rocks and walls, willows and leafless scrub. Perhaps the watchers had been recalled. Concealed behind a protruding boulder, I tossed stones on the path ahead.

No one came. So I scrambled up the path to the slot gate and found two soldiers stretched out on the massive rocks, snoring peacefully. Strange. With the harsh truths of war all around, how could they sleep? Had the Danae enchanted them?

I tossed the rug aside and emerged from the smoky hirudo into a brilliant dawn. The necropolis rose in stark majesty above Plateau Caton. Deunor Lightbringer and his half brother Magrog yet grappled for the souls of humankind atop the gates. The gates themselves stood open as if to welcome me home.

Siege or no siege, the work of the day had begun. A party of diggers trundled barrows between the graves of the unknowns. Two men led three horses across the graveyard as if to join them.

More than anything just now, I wanted to walk through Caton’s gates. To hear Constance’s squawking voice. To argue with Bastien. To pick up my pens and ink, summon magic, and do useful work. A mug of weak ale, a few dried figs, and a loaf of pignut bread would set a feast, and a few hours’ sleep on my straw pallet would be bliss.

On
this
morning, we would more likely face an invasion by Perryn’s men wanting us to defend the walls, or Bayard’s captains, asking why we should not be conscripted into building siege engines. I might be able to offer some protection—or at least some measure of authority. I had vowed to be at Bastien’s side if I walked free, and I hated breaking my word.

But this argument was already settled. To enter those gates would be to compromise the one man who might have the wits to talk himself out of the ill consequences of my situation.

Once safely away where a message could not be traced back to me, I’d let Bastien know why I had failed him. For today I ripped a bit of tattered lace from my shirt and tied it to the slot gate. Maybe Constance would recognize it.

The two horsemen angled toward me, plodding slowly between the hummocks. Wary, I shambled along the wall. A few hundred quercae and I would be out of sight in the gully between the wall and the plateau.

“Lucian de Remeni-Masson?” one of them called from a distance. “Hold up.”

They left their mounts and hurried toward me. I smothered the curse on my tongue. My legs certainly had no spring to outrun anyone. Which searchers had found me first? Damon’s? Pluvius’s? The Albins’?

The two weren’t Danae. They wore leather jaques, plain russet breeches, and knee-high boots instead of light-drawn artworks. Nor were they Registry. They wore masks—one brown, one black—not the pureblood half mask, but full masks that fit like a second skin.

Why did that make me shiver so? More even than the coiled whips and well-used swords at their hips.

The threat of pureblood retaliation might be the only means to divert a masked stranger. Though my cloak wrapped a dead man in the Ciceron commons house, I slipped on my mask and extended my open palm to keep them at a distance. “Who dares intrude upon a pureblood at his business?”

One man had the look of a hawk: tough and sinewy, with small, sharp eyes, a beak nose, and short brown hair flecked with sun yellow. The other’s sleek black hair, so dark it was almost blue, and long, powerful body put me in mind of a raven.

“If you are the one we name, then we are your only business,” said the black-haired man. His words were as smooth as his hair and just as richly dark. “You have the aspect of the person we were told to find. How many tattered, unshaven sorcerers visit a city of the dead?”

“Our coming was told you,” said the hawklike man. Coarse and brittle, his voice rasped like footsteps on broken glass. “This is the hour of your choice.”

So Damon’s strange offer yet stood. Two men would give me a chance of survival, he’d said, yea or nay, never to be offered again. Would he report Bastien’s lax oversight if I refused?

“I am the one you name.”

“You stand at the crossroads of your future,” said the dark one, smoother than his companion. “Do you understand what is offered?”

“A house of healing and reflection, I was told, but heavy with rules and restriction. I’ve had enough of those, I think. Submission does not entice me.”

In no way could I do this, not now that I suspected that acceptance could give my enemies such power over me.

“A house of work and learning,” said the man in black. “A house of cleansing, where a man can erase what’s past and build his life anew. He can become stronger and more skilled in many ways. A challenging life.”

Building anew . . . there was some attraction in that. And gods knew I needed to learn.

“Too challenging for some.” The man in brown sounded ready to dismiss me already. “Some wither. Some break. Perhaps you’re not as well suited to it as we were told.”

“What kind of learning? Magic, art, history? Those are my preferred studies.”

“The Marshal will decide what you are taught and in what order. But magic is entwined in all we do.”

That surprised me, and yet it was
Damon
had sent them. He had taken risks to set this plan in motion. His search parties had not found me. Of course his protégé had done murder by my hand. Did Pons intend I should have no choice but this? I wanted no bargain bought with blood. Even guilty blood. But how to refuse . . . ?

“What if I don’t like what’s taught or how or in what order?”

“Your likes or dislikes are no one’s concern.” The hawk’s feathers ruffled easily.

The other was more equable. “Before we take you, you must vow to abide by the judgment of our masters—the Marshal and those he names. You must agree to leave your old life and old concerns behind and begin anew. In return, you will be given nourishment for body and mind, discipline, knowledge, and skills that can take you beyond what you believe yourself capable of. Though magic will be a portion of your training, the goal is not to develop your inborn bent, but rather your physical and magical skills, your will, and your spirit. You will be prepared for whatever the gods have decreed for your future.”

I thought that was what I’d done all my life, but then again, my future was not developing in the way I’d imagined. Just now I needed to hide. Though, indeed, any use of my two bents could bring down the Danae and their torments. I shuddered. I wanted to learn a great deal more about the earth’s guardians before I asked what use
they
had for me. I scanned the burial ground and the plateau. There was nowhere to run but into the necropolis.

“This would be for a year, I was told.”

“Perhaps a year. Perhaps two or three. You will not be a prisoner, though leaving before you are ready will carry consequences. Swords half-forged can be dangerous. Nothing insurmountable if you are so determined. That’s all we can say.”

“There are attractions in your offer, no question,” I said, not wishing to offend men who looked so . . . capable. “But you ask a great commitment on very little information. I need to think on it. I’ve important things I need to do.” Like exploring the mystery of my power. Like
pursuing the Path of the White Hand; my only family now lived, I believed, at the other end of it.

“You’ve no time to think on it,” said the man in the brown mask. “We’ve come a very long way to fetch you and would prefer not to be locked up in this city to starve or die. Choose now. If you refuse, we ride away and you’ll not see us again.”

Annoyance flared. “And the one who sent you will plague my friends. Do you execute his threats as well as his invitations?”

The raven man shrugged. “We know naught of him. The Marshal heeded a recommendation of you as one who will fit well with our Order. Our standards are very high and very particular.”

I should just dismiss them, and yet . . . I delayed again. “What Order? And where is this house of learning?”

The black-masked man laughed—a hearty, honest laugh. “If you decide to go, it doesn’t matter. If you don’t, we prefer to keep ourselves private.”

That made sense. I walked away a few steps and crouched beside one of the hummocks—the grave of an unknown. A man stood in the open gateway of Necropolis Caton, shielding his eyes from the sun as if watching for someone. No way could he see us, deep in the shadow of the wall as we were. The man’s shape, his coloring . . . could it be Bastien? Fascinated, I watched as he climbed up the iron gates and mounted something on the tallest spike. He jumped down and vanished inside. The gates slammed shut behind him.

I squinted. It was a very long way. The object on the spike looked like a head, or perhaps it was only that heads had been mounted on gate spikes for a very long time. Or perhaps . . .

How better to warn me away than to spike my other head, the leather mask, on his gate? A laugh bubbled up from inside me, only to die again as quickly. Perhaps it was a sign that I was no longer welcome. I hated to think someone had told my necropolis family about Gilles and Pons, that Bastien might think I had succumbed to petty revenge.

But of course, my embarrassments were unimportant. My only refuge was now barred to me. And even if it weren’t, I had to keep away to protect those inside. Running on my own was a daunting prospect. But I was ignorant, not stupid. And perhaps I could keep from starving by drawing portraits, even without magic. Aye, there was the dilemma. How would I learn anything without magic?

What if Pons’s talk of hopes and the future was sincere? Damon had said that honor mattered. Magic mattered. Now that I was aware of the risk, was it possible I could hold back whatever consent would allow them to manipulate me?

I was flummoxed. Perhaps after a night’s sleep I could weigh such a choice. Perhaps when I was no longer addled from altered portraits and traitorous curators, imaginary rats and spiders, and sending my sister away to who knew where.

“Choose!” A firm
thwup
punctuated the hawk man’s command. A dagger with an engraved hilt was buried in the earth beside my knee. “If you would come, cut your palm and offer a blood vow, agreeing to abide by the terms we have described. If you refuse, walk away.”

The dagger’s hilt was engraved white on black, in a pattern. . . .

I snatched up the knife. The engraving was an archer’s quiver with five disparate objects poking out of it—a staff, a sword, a whip, a hammer, and a pen. Not a tree, not a hand, but indeed five branches, white on black.

“Is this the blazon of your order?” I said, excitement pricking me awake.

“It is.” They spoke together.

I offered a brief prayer that I was not the lunatic others might name me, and then I stood and wiped the blade on my shirt. An icy sting, and I offered the knife and my bloody palm to the hawk man.

The ancient ritual brought Oldmeg and Demetreo to mind. I hoped these people were as honorable. My own honor must bend and my submission remain incomplete. I would reserve my own will past the swearing; too many enemies were waiting for me to slip. But if this was a step along the Path of the White Hand, I had to follow it.

The hawk man cut his own palm and grasped mine. No smirk of triumph, no gleam of avarice marred his solemnity.
“Dallé cineré.”
Aurellian words:
From the ashes
.

I responded. “I swear to abide by these two terms you have set: to set aside the concerns of my life and abide by the discipline of your house as well as I am able. On my family name and blood, on our holy gifts, on the lines of magic unbroken, I swear it. Witness my oath, great Deunor, Lord of Fire and Magic. Witness my truth, mighty Erdru, Lord of Vines.”

And then I prayed the gods’ forgiveness in advance for the myriad ways I planned to interpret
as well as I am able
.

I had scarce reclaimed my hand when the raven man raised his. “One more step of our rite,” he said. “To accept your swearing, I must lay hands on your head.”

Before I could think, his large, callused hands lay cool and firm on my temples. They felt solid, substantial. Exhaustion had left me half dizzy.

“Speak your name,” he said.

“My name is—Magrog’s balls!” His fingers might have been spikes and the slight pressure of his hands a mason’s hammer driving them into my skull. I tried to swipe his arms aside, but the slightest movement drove the spikes even deeper.

The bright morning went gray. The circling crows paused in their flight, the sun in its passage.

“Wait!” I cried. Drawings, faces, images, names fluttered like pages torn from a precious book and set flying by a raging wind. As each swept past, I tried to grasp it, but it disintegrated in a shower of dust. I sank to my knees because I could not both stand and reach so deep all at once, and I inhaled great gulps of air because surely breath must be swept away with the dust of my life. . . .

“T
yro!”
Someone tapped my cheek.
“Stand up. At least lift your head so we can give you a drink.”

Impossible to obey. My head felt like an anvil, my eyelids like cold lead. I could scarce summon a thought.

The hand lifted my chin and pressed a flask to my lips. Water . . . blessed divinities! I guzzled like a thirsting hound. Rude to take so much. Did he have more?