In the Darkness (16 page)

“Sword and bow, tracking, trapping.” Rhyd indicated the trapper’s gear and pelts. “Tried teaching him to ride a horse, but they’re afraid to death of him. Never could set him on one. Hard to get a hound to trust him.”

“Oh, that’s fine. Do horses flee on sight?”

“Yes, lord.”

“Excellent. That could be useful. But is he…dull?”

Rhyd and Magareta looked nervously at one another. Rhyd said, “Lord, we…didn’t educate him none, ’cept as you wished. The boy don’t have no experience of the world beyond this mountain.”

“I’m quite sure of that! But is he quick? Does he learn?”

“Oh yes, he always was quick when we showed him chores and—”

“Fine, fine!”

Magareta gave a short jump and left Rhyd’s side to go to a cupboard.

“Gareth’s room is under the floor,” Rhyd said. “Good place to hide during the day. No visitors ever knew.”

“You have done well. Raised him to maturity in utter secrecy. I’ve had other servants not nearly so faithful.”

Magareta brought cakes, which she offered to her guest.

“Thank you, my dear. Tell me, what is unusual about the boy? What have you seen so far? Beyond the obvious, of course.”

“Can’t hurt him,” Rhyd said. His nervousness was momentarily overcome by pride in having good news to relate. “Can’t hurt him for long. Bear ripped his arm clean off, and it grew back good as new before we could come home to tell Magareta.”

The old man smiled. “I had hoped. Exactly the power I wanted. And in a smart one! And the appendages? All normal?”

Magareta blushed a little, but Rhyd answered without hesitation. “Hands and feet like a man, absolutely. Five fingers and toes. Face like a prince, and I mean a
prince
—if it weren’t for…you know.”

The old man sat back in the chair, satisfied. He looked around the hovel and sighed.

“My, my, you surely must have missed the tower during these long years. Remember your place in the hierarchy? When even you had other servants to order about?” A pause while he waited for an answer.

“We never,” Magareta said in a slow and serious voice, “never considered disobeying. Not for a moment.”

“Never,” said Rhyd.

“You were always my best servants at the tower.” The man shook his head. “You may have despised one another, but certainly you were always faithful to me.”

“Thank you, lord.”

“And here we are.”

“Yes, lord.”

“Gareth, is it? Not Garet, as they’d say here? An old name. An odd name to choose. But nobody knows him, so there’s no one to wonder. Tell me, whose ancestors do you honor? Mine…or the queen’s?”

The old man ate a cake and waited as Rhyd choked on a reply.

“No no,” the old man said. “My dear Rhyd, don’t be apoplectic! You haven’t insulted me. I’m merely having sport with you. Of course I know you named him after a hero—one of the Knights of Caerdyth who united the kingdom.” He gave them a second to relax, then continued, “You—or was it Magareta?—cleverly divined that the boy is not just an undying sacrifice, that he has a role in a larger purpose. Cleverness is ever so much more dangerous than insults. Now.” He brushed crumbs off his fingers. “Where is my son?”

Chapter Thirteen

Evin let Gareth carry him during the first few nights of their flight. It was faster that way, and the thing they needed most, at first, was to get distance from Laforet. Evin trusted Gareth to keep them going in one direction, but didn’t care which direction it might be. Just that it was away.

They moved so swiftly in the night that they never even heard the pursuers who surely must have followed. They were together, and they were leaving the tragedy behind forever. They had almost got away unscathed. Almost.

Except that after Tyber lost his sword, he had picked that log up from the fire.

Gareth’s burns did not heal. Not in moments and not in days.

Evin knew that while they traveled, Gareth tried to hide how much the burns troubled him. But when they found places in the woods to hide during the day, he slept facedown and not very well. It didn’t make sense. Wounds from swords and arrows had disappeared instantly, leaving no scars on Gareth’s body. Yet the burns had hurt him terribly, and they weren’t healing at all.

Evin’s wounded thigh, on the other hand, had sealed up nicely after he cleaned it and applied remedies from the tiny stock he kept in his pack. He had feared the cut was too long and deep—the kind that people died from, sometimes despite an apothecary’s help—but after Evin endured excruciating pain while cleaning out all the bits of dirt, the sides of it stuck together and the scab looked very good.

It was unfair that he should get well so easily while Gareth suffered.

Evin foraged for food each day and made sure Gareth ate. He also tried to remember everything about the treatments Madame Tabeau might have offered for burns. The ones he had in his pack ran out quickly. Then he used plants to make the best remedies he could, but they were horrible and inept. He didn’t have time to dry anything that should be powdered, and he rarely found the plants whose oils he could use, the ones that would help the most.

It killed Evin every time he touched Gareth’s burned places to apply the useless poultices. Gareth refused to cry out or even whimper, but Evin could tell he suffered by his breathing and the way his muscles vibrated. Sometimes Gareth exhausted himself with the effort it took to be still and keep up the pretense that Evin’s ministrations were not agonizing.

After a few days, Gareth couldn’t carry Evin anymore because it hurt too much. The burns developed their own yellow skin on top of the red-black scabs, a skin that sometimes wept a green liquid that Evin feared was Gareth’s own flesh dissolving underneath.

They were too far away now to go back and appeal to Madame Tabeau for help. She was the only one in the world Evin could have—should have—trusted. He had been a fool to run, and Gareth had been a fool to follow him. Evin carried the knowledge as a stone in his heart. Gareth would die because of him.

One night as they stumbled through the woods together, making a wide circle around another village, Evin realized that Gareth was having a conversation with his mother.

“I swear, I’ll never tell, I promise, not nobody, that Father took him apart, and I’m not hungry now, I don’t want the meat, I promise!”

Evin scrubbed an arm across his face. They had not gone far since the sun set, but they were going to have to stop soon. He approached and raised a hand to touch Gareth’s cheek.

Gareth flinched. “It’s bad. I’m not hungry!”

“Shhhh. It’s okay. I’m not going to make you eat anything. It’s okay.” Gareth’s agitation subsided enough for Evin to lay his palm against Gareth’s forehead. Not cold anymore, not like it should be. Evin would have to find a fever remedy tonight. Maybe a cool stream.

They came instead to a small, unoccupied cabin. Evin judged that they would be safe there for the night. Maybe Gareth could have a real bed, and there might even be stores Evin could use. Evin took Gareth’s arm and led him up to the little house and inside.

“Oh no, they burned the meat,” Gareth said. “Smells bad.”

The little bed looked too rickety to support Gareth’s weight, so Evin led him to a clear area on the floor. “Time to rest now, baby.” He tugged on an arm, and Gareth sank obediently down.

“Mother won’t make me eat it this time, will she? Somebody burned him up.”

“No, you don’t have to eat, just rest now. Here, lie down.”

“Why’re you crying?”

Evin tried a brittle smile. “I’m happy, because you’re here with me.”

“That’s stupid.” Gareth lay facedown. “Hurts,” he said into the floorboards.

“I know. I’ll get something to make it feel better.”

“Please don’t let her make me!”

A stream. Evin could let him rest for now, but if he could find a cool stream, he could put Gareth into it to bring down the fever.

* * *

Evin wandered around in the darkness for too long, cursing the aeons for not giving him, just this one night, burning eyes to see something in the dark, anything that might help. But he found nothing.

Near midnight, he grew too nervous to leave Gareth alone any longer. He returned to the cabin to reassure himself that their situation had not worsened.

He found an old man, a stranger, sitting on a wooden chair outside the cabin.

Evin couldn’t see him very well in the darkness beneath the trees, but he didn’t care. He walked past the man without a word, going to the door to make sure—

It was locked.

“Hello, son. We’ve been waiting for you. Gareth told me all about you while you were gone. Come speak with me.”

Evin rattled the door’s latch, pounded his fist against the wood.

“Gareth! Gareth, I’m here! Can you hear me?” He tried to ram the door with his shoulder, but it wouldn’t budge. He went around the cabin looking for another way in, but the windows were too high for him to reach. How had he not noticed before?

“Evin, come here, child. You’re not going to get him that way.”

Evin stalked over to the man. “What have you done?”

“That’s better. Hold this.” The man put something into his hand. Evin hissed. Searing cold! But his hand closed and he didn’t drop it. Couldn’t drop it. He couldn’t turn his head or even move his eyes. Fear swept out his anger.

“Put it on.”

The terrible cold had faded. Evin lifted the thing into his field of vision. It was a pendant with a leather strap. He put it over his head. His gaze never left the man’s face.

“There you go. Evin, my name is Cydrich. Have you heard of me?”

Demon hunter. Oh no, oh no
! A scream built up in his chest, squeezing his heart like a fist. But he could make no sound.

“Oh, I see that you have indeed heard tell of me. I’m very pleased to meet you, my boy.”

You didn’t find him, no, please, lords, no, you didn’t!

“Look at the cabin, boy.”

Evin looked. The cabin shimmered. Its solid wooden walls rippled and dissolved as if they had been nothing but a dream. A hazy, empty image of safety that faded away to reveal devastation.

He saw the black smoke first, rising from the few timbers that remained, some standing at odd angles, as the rest of the building had burned away. The cabin was nothing but a blackened husk, sagging in on itself. Here and there, edges still glowed with pulsing orange light. Sparks rose in the night, carried by smoke that tumbled and rolled up into the sky.

With the glamor lifted, Evin smelled it now. Charred wood and flesh.
Somebody burned him up.

The scream in his chest was a protest. A denial. The high shriek of a child running with a sword too heavy to wield. It fought to break him, tear him open for release, but still no sound could escape his body.

Only tears could come out. Streams of them.

“Evin, child, I want you to tell what happened here. Are you listening? Look at me again.”

Against his will, Evin’s flooding eyes tracked back to the face in the dark. He would have fallen to his knees, but caught up by power in the pendant, his joints remained locked, waiting for Cydrich’s commands. He could not even open his mouth to curse the demon hunter. Or to curse the
demiourgos
who made Gareth, a miracle, and gave him over to a fool like Evin to destroy.

“I have a little job for you, my friend. An important job. I want you to tell the queen what happened here. About the demon who slew Tyber Clane and—remember these names—Rhyd and Magareta Duskan. The queen will be in her palace at Parige.”

Evin couldn’t move, couldn’t look away.

“Know the way now and go.”

Evin’s legs moved. He turned in a direction. The direction he must go. As he turned, his gaze raked across the destruction once more. Sparks wafted up. More timbers collapsed.

He found the direction he must go, and he went.

“Oh, wait. Stop!” Cydrich called. “You’re nobody; you can’t just walk up to the palace and gain entry. Let’s see…”

Locked up again, Evin heard rustling and humming, the sounds of Cydrich rooting through items in a pack.

“Hm, hm, hm. The thing about sorcelry, Evin—no, that won’t do—is that you have to prepare everything in advance. People around here used to talk about hexes, did you know that? Curses and spells. Silly superstitions. But when sorcelry was discovered, how to make devices to do wondrous things…well, that changed the world, didn’t it?”

Without hope, Evin tried to shut out the droning voice. Why had he wasted so much time wandering in the woods? Why hadn’t he been here to help when Gareth needed him most?

“But you have to prepare in advance. If you don’t have the right device at the right time… Ah! And I think I do, boy, yes, I think I do. Harmless, not made with blood. They’ll never notice it. Oh, the women will
adore
you, Evin. The queen will
want
to listen to you!”

Cydrich approached. Skin crawled on Evin’s neck and shoulders as he waited in dread of what would come next. Something terribly cold clasped against Evin’s ear. It grew colder still until it hurt like a knife cutting in, and then it was gone.

“Say nothing about that object. Forget it now.”

Skin crawled on Evin’s neck and shoulders—but instead of touching him with any new device, Cydrich simply gave orders. Maybe he hadn’t found what he was looking for.

“Tell the queen you were hunting tonight, on a trip far from home. You were tracking the beast who killed your friend, Tyber. You came here quite by coincidence, just after I burned the demon. Say nothing to contradict this story. If she discovers you were the demon’s plaything, she will execute you.”

There was a place of suffering. Evin realized that the priests were right. Punishment for all the times he had lied to make things better, to get what he wanted, to protect himself or the ones he loved. For pulling Gareth into danger to satisfy his own curiosity and lust, despite Gareth’s need to remain hidden forever.

For bringing him here to die, then leaving him to die alone.

Cydrich had taken Evin’s body, worse than Tyber or anyone, and he was trapped in it, alone with Cydrich’s lies and the certainty of his own guilt. How far was it to Parige? If it was too far to walk, he might be in the place of suffering for the rest of his life.