Godslayer (20 page)

In her lonely chamber, Lilias of Beshtanag wept, too.

Only she knew why.

"Tell me again."

The Shaper's voice was deep and resonant, with no trace of anger or madness. It loosened something tight and knotted in Ushahin's chest, even as the warmth of the Chamber of the Font eased his aching joints. The blue-white blaze of the Font made his head ache, but the pulse of Godslayer within it soothed him. Between the heat and the sweet, coppery odor of blood, the Chamber was almost as pleasant as the Delta. Ushahin sat in a high-backed chair, both crooked hands laced around one updrawn knee, and related all he had seen and knew.

Armies were making their way across the face of Urulat.

His ravens had scattered to the four corners and seen it. It would be better to recall them and summon the Ravensmirror, but they were yet too far afield. Still. Ushahin perceived their flickering thoughts. He could not render their multitude of impressions into a whole, but what glimpses they saw, he described for his Lord. Pelmarans, marching like ants in a double row. Vedasian knights riding astride, encased like beetles in steel carapaces. Arduan archers in leather caps, accorded a wary distance. Midlanders laying down their plows, taking up rusted swords.

A company of Rivenlost, bright and shining, emerging from the vale of Meronil. Behind them were the Borderguard of Curonan, grim-faced and dire. Above them flew two pennants; the Crown and Souma, and the gilt-eyed Sword of Altorus Farseer. And among the forefront rode Malthus the Counselor, who carried no staff, but a spear whose blade was a nimbus of light.

Lord Salons heaved a mighty sigh. "So he has brought it forth. Ah. Malthus! I knew you had it hidden. Would that I dared pluck
Godslayer from the marrow-fire. I would not be loath to face you on the field of battle once more."

Sitting in his chair. Ushahin watched the Shaper pace, a vast moving shadow in the flickering chamber. There was a question none of them had dared to ask, fearful of the answer. It had been on the tip of his tongue many times. And when all was said and done, the fears of Ushahin Dreamspinner who had made a friend of madness, were not like those of other men. This time, he asked it. "Will it come to that, my Lord?"

"It will not." The Shaper ceased to pace and wen! still. Shadows seethed in the corners of the chamber, thickening. Darkness settled like a mantle on Satoris, and his eyes shone from it like twin coals. "For if it came to that. Dreamspinner—if it became necessary that I must venture onto the field of battle myself—it would mean we had already lost. It is not the defense I intended, nor have spent these many years building. Do you understand?"

"Perhaps, my Lord," Ushahin offered. "You have spent much or yourself."

"Spent!" Lord Satoris gave a harsh laugh. "Spent, yes. I raised Darkhaven, I bound it beneath a shroud of clouds! I summoned my Three and bent the Chain of Being to encompass them! I bent my Brother's weapon to my own will and tuned the Helm of Shadow's to the pitch of my despair. I brought down the Marasoumië! I am a Shaper, and such lies within my reach. It is not what I have spent willingly that I fear, Dreamspinner."

The blue-white glare of the Font gleamed on the trickle of ichor that bled down the black column of the Shaper's thigh. At his feet, a dark pool was beginning to accumulate, spreading like ink over the stone floor. How much of the Shaper's power had his unhealing wound leached from him over the ages?

"My Lord." Ushahin swallowed, the scent of blood thick in his throat. "I spoke to you of my time in the Delta. There is power there, in the place of your birth. Might you not find healing there?"

"Once, perhaps." Satoris' voice was unexpectedly gentle. "Ah, Dreamspinner! If I had fled there when Haomane's Wrath scorched me, instead of quenching my pain in the cool snows of the north…
perhaps. But I did not. And now it is Calanthrag's place, and not mine. The dragons have paid a terrible price tor taking part in this battle between my brethren and I. I do not think the Eldest would welcome my return."

"She—" Ushahin remembered the endless vastness behind the dragon's gaze and fell silent. There were no words for it.

"You have seen."

Not trusting his voice, he nodded.

"All things must be as they must," the Shaper mused. "It is the one truth my Brother refuses to grasp, the one thought the Lord-of-Thought will not think. Perhaps it is easier, thus. Perhaps I should have spent less time speaking with dragons when the world was young, and more time among my own kind."

"My Lord?" Ushahin found his voice. "All of Seven… each of your brethren, they Shaped Children after their own desires, yet you did not. Why is it so?"

Lord Satoris, Satoris Third-Born, who was once called the Sower, smiled and opened his arms. In his ravaged visage, beneath the red glare of his eyes and his wrath-scorched form, there lay the bright shadow of what he had been when the world was young. Of what he had been when he had walked upon it and ventured into the deep places his brethren feared, and he had spoken with dragons and given his Gift to many. "Did I not?" he asked softly. "Hear me. Dreamspinner, and remember.
All
of you are my Children: all that live and walk upon the face of Urulat, thinking thoughts and wondering at them. Do you deny it?"

There was madness in it; and there was not. The madness of Shapers could not be measured by the standards of Men—no, nor Were, nor Ellylon, nor any of the Lesser Shapers. The foundations of Darkhaven shifted; the foundations of Darkhaven held. Which was true?

All things must be as they must.

Ushahin shuddered and glanced sideways, his gaze falling upon Godslayer. There it hung in the glittering Font, beating like a heart. A Shard of the Souma, its rough handle a knob of rock. It would fit a child's hand, such a child as might raise it and bring it crashing down, heedless of what it crushed. Heedless of what it pierced. The pattern, the Great Story, was present in every pulse of light it emitted.

Let it come later than sooner.

Tears made his vision swim, spiked the lashes that framed his uneven eyes. "Ah, my Lord! No, never. I would not deny it."

"Ushahin." There was tenderness in the Shaper's voice, a tenderness too awful to bear. "These events were set in motion long ago. Perhaps there was a better course I might have chosen; a wiser course. Perhaps if I had tempered my defiance with deference, my Elder Brother's wrath would not have been so quick to rouse. But I cannot change the past; nor would it change the outcome if I could. My role was foreordained ere the death of Uru-Alat birthed the Seven Shapers, both its beginning and its ending—and though I grow weary, when that will come, not even Calanthrag the Eldest can say with surety. Thus. I play my role as best I might. I honor my debts. I must be what I am, as long as I may cling to it. And when I cannot, I will not. Do you understand?"

Ushahin nodded violently.

"That is well." Satoris, moving without sound, had drawn near. For a moment, his hand rested on Ushahin's brow. It was heavy, so heavy! And yet there was comfort in it. Comfort, and a kind of love. "You see too much, Dreamspinner."

"I know," he whispered.

"Tell me, then, what you see to the north." The hand was withdrawn, the Shaper resumed his pacing. Where he had stood, the stones drank in his ichor and the dark pool vanished. Another portion of him had become part of Darkhaven. "Have your ravens found the Bearer? Have my Fjel dispatched him yet?"

"No." Ushahin shook his head. "Many of your Fjel gather in Neherinach. That much, my ravens have seen. I suspect the hunt is afoot. More, I cannot say." He hesitated. "There is another thing, my Lord."

The red glare of the Shaper's eyes turned his way. "Say it!"

"Staccians." Ushahin cleared his throat. "Those we saw in the Ravensmirror, arming, those along the path the Galäinridder forged… I have touched their dreams, and they make their way to the plains of Curonan, for it is the place toward which all the armies are bound. And yet the Staccians, they were the first to set out. By now they may have reached the outskirts."

Lord Satoris laughed. It was an unpleasant sound. "Might they?"

"Aye." Ushahin glanced involuntarily at the Helm of Shadows, sitting in its niche. Darkness filled its eyeholes like the promise of anguish. "I could learn more if you would give me leave to walk the plains—"

"No." Lord Satoris raised one hand. "No," he repeated. "I do not need to know what lies in the hearts of these
Men
, who beheld the flight of Malthus the Counselor and his colorless Soumanië, that is so strange and altered. Still. I may use them as an example. Let Staccia see how I deal with oath-breakers, and Haomane's Allies how I deal with those who would destroy me." He smiled. It was not a pleasant sight. "Go, Dreamspinner, and send General Tanaros to me. Yes, and Lord Vorax, too."

"As you will." Ushahin murmured, rising.

"Dreamspinner?" The Shaper's voice had altered: the unlikely gentleness had returned.

"My Lord?"

"Remember," Lord Satoris said. "Whatever happens. All that you have learned. All that you have
seen
. It is all I ask."

Ushahin nodded. "I will."

Somewhere in the middle of the night, Uncle Thulu's strength began to wane.

Dani felt it happen.

He had done his part; he had not argued. Once he had regained his breath, they had come to an accommodation. If Uncle Thulu would lower him from his shoulder, Dani would suffer himself to be carried on his uncle's back.

He had wrapped his legs around his uncle's waist, clinging to his neck. Uncle Thulu resumed his steady trot. It made Dani feel like a child again; only this night was like something from a child's nightmare. What did the desert-born know of rain? After the storm passed, it continued to fall, endless and drumming, soaking them to the skin. It was cold. He had not known it was possible to be so cold, nor so tired. Dani rested his cheek against Uncle Thulu's shoulder. The vial containing the Water of Life was an uncomfortable lump pressing into his flesh. Still, through the rough wool of his shirt, he could feel the warmth rising from his uncle's skin, warming him. It was one of the gifts the Water of Life had imparted.

When it began to fade, he felt that, too. Felt the shivers that raced through his uncle as coldness set into his bones. Felt his steps begin to falter and stagger. Slight though he was. Dani was no longer a child. His weight had begun to tell.

"Uncle." He spoke into Thulu's ear. "You must put me down."

It took another handful of staggering steps before his uncle obeyed. Dani slid down his back, finding his feet. His limbs had become cramped and stiff, and his right arm did not quite work properly. Every inch of flesh ached, bruised and battered by his flood-borne tumble down the rocky slope. Still, he was alive, and he had recovered enough strength to continue unaided.

"Can you go on?" he asked.

Uncle Thulu was bent at the waist, hands braced on his knees, catching his breath. At Dani's question, he lifted his head. A dull grey light had begun to alleviate the blackness of the eastern skies behind them. It was enough to make out the rain dripping steadily from his face, into his open, exhausted eyes.