Master and Fool (50 page)

By setting light
to a corridor lined with bookshelves, they had managed to slow their pursuers
down. In reality, there was more smoke than flames and it had probably given
them an extra minute at the most. Even so, they still had priests ahead of them
to deal with. Jack glanced around the naked stone. There was nothing to burn
here, that was for sure.

Down and down they
went. Hacking men out of their way, choosing the darkest paths, never pausing
once to catch their breaths. Instead of dropping, the temperature was actually
rising. The air was thickening, warming, pulsing. Jack felt it brushing against
his face in waves. He was too exhausted to be afraid.

Then he heard the
sound. High, discordant, it was like the braying of hounds on the scent. Every
hair on Jack's body bristled. It wasn't hounds, it was the seers, and they were
waiting for him. That was it, he thought, waiting. The old woman rocking in her
chair had been waiting, the rock he hit his head against had been waiting, the
island itself had been waiting. Not the priests, not the hooded ones, but the
land, the stone, the soil.

Tawl was by his
side, clearing a path. Blood spattered over Jack's cheeks and forehead. He let
his sword drop to the ground. He could no longer hold it. Stepping ahead into
the crowd of milling, panicking priests, he made no effort to defend himself.
That was why the knight was here, so he let him do his job.

The visual world
was sloughing away. The seers keened, the rhythm beat, the blood cooled his
skin as it dried.

Then he was there,
in the cavern, where he was meant to be. A domed ceiling glowed with seams of
crystal, below it rows of stones were laid out in neat rows. Bound to each
stone was a man. Wailing and shifting gracelessly against their bindings, they
had little meaning to Jack. They weren't important. It was the cavern itself
that counted.

It was the source,
the heart. It throbbed with power, setting everything resonating in time. Jack
felt his own heart racing to fall in with the rhythm. The pounding in his head
already matched the beat.

Tawl was at his
back, at his side, in front of him. The red and silver blur of his sword was as
good as a shield. Clashing metal, ragged breaths, and death cries diminished to
so much background noise. The pulse was everything. Jack was drawn to the back
of the cavern. His eyes no longer saw, but his blood pulled him forward
nonetheless.

Reaching the end
wall, he stretched out both his arms and laid his flattened palms against the
rock. A jolt like the one earlier, only stronger and more compelling, raced
down Jack's spine. His muscles tensed and his body jerked. Warm air blasted
down his body. Jack felt the cavern's heart, felt its ancient and terrible
power.

And then he knew
what he must do.

Ignoring all
instincts for survival, Jack relaxed, leaving his body open to the pulse. Panic
swept over him. He ignored it. His legs shook beneath him. He paid them no
heed. His heart had to beat in time with the cavern; only then, only when his
blood pumped through his arteries at the same rate as the power pulsed through
the seams in the rock, could he do anything. No sorcery could be drawn. No
risks could be taken. Nothing could be done without the bond. Fear was a sprung
trap within his stomach. He felt its cold metal teeth tearing away at his
resolve. He was sick, sweating. The world his senses had shaped for him was
lacking markers. Jack felt as if he had been cast adrift upon a sea of
blood-warm oil. Unable to get his bearings and unwilling to break his
connection with the stone, Jack took his chances in the dark.

The two beats were
close to matching. Off-kilter by a tenth of a second, they jarred against each
other, the stronger of the two exerting all the pressure of a mountain's worth
of rock. Jack felt his heart racing, pumping, aching with the strain. A sharp,
needling pain darted up his left arm.

His heart stopped.

His lungs sucked
in air, but there were no takers. There was an instant of pure blackness. Like
death. With it came glimpses of secrets, memories left like an aftertaste in
his blood. He knew this place. He was familiar with the power. Coming here was
like coming home.

And then a strong
contraction racked Jack's body and his heart began to beat in time. Close to
swooning, Jack slumped against the rock face. It was warm against his chest. An
almost sensuous pleasure swept over his body; he felt calmed, soothed, held in
a gentle embrace. It seemed natural to draw his power now--it was made of the
same substance that surrounded him. Why hadn't he seen it before? Why hadn't he
recognized his own?

Slowly the sorcery
began to flow. There was no need for nasty scenes, no anger to be used for
fuel. It flowed out of him to the rock, to the cavern, and down into the
island's core. It was so easy, it just drained away on its own. Jack knew such
peace, such a sense of belonging, all he wanted to do was join with the rock.

Niggling little
things kept buzzing through his head: sounds, sights, instincts. He went deeper
so they wouldn't distract him. The cavern enveloped him like a womb.

Jack! Be
careful! You're losing yourself.

What was
Stillfox's voice doing down so deep? Jack pushed it aside. It was just another
memory amongst many.
You fool. You were in control of nothing. The glass was
controlling you. You nearly
lost
yourself to it.

Oh, but this
wasn't glass. And he was in control. Deeper and deeper he went, power flowing
from him like a river to the sea.

Stillfox's voice
seemed to have left open the gate to his senses. Irritating noises barged in on
his thoughts. Swords ringing, footfalls sounding, the high shrieking cries of
the seers. It was bedlam compared to the tranquillity of the stone.

"Do what you
were born for."

It took Jack a
moment to realize that the words were separate from his thoughts. He tried to
push the voice into the background. Only it wasn't in the background, it came
from right beside him.

"Do it
now."

There was a
thin-bladed desperation in the voice that cut through the layers in Jack's
brain. His senses began to reassert themselves. He smelled the flinty dryness
of the stone and caught the sharp ammonia whiff of urine. His vision blurred
into focus. He saw the rock, his hands--they were distorted, as if seen through
rounded glass.

The cavern lured
him back. He pulled against it, whipping his head around in the direction of
the voice.

The eyes of a
madman looked into his. A seer, blue-eyed, hollow-cheeked, lips as dry as bone.
Bound to his stone, the ropes had shaped his body like bread set to bake in a
mold.

Two mighty coils
crossed his chest, and Jack could see how his rib cage had developed around the
rope. The normal curve of chest wasn't there. There were two deep depressions
where the ribs had been unable to grow normally. The sight was appalling. What
about the organs underneath---the heart, the lungs--were they misshapen too?

Young boys,
Stillfox had said. The seers were bound before they were full grown.

"Do what you
were born for."

No. The eyes of
the seer weren't mad. Desperate, yes, but not mad. The man was calling for his
own destruction. Jack senses sharpened like crystal. He saw where the rope cut
through skin. He saw open sores, infection, malformed limbs, and atrophied
muscles. He smelled decay. This was what Larn was made of. The mighty rhythm of
the cavern was all for this.

And it was time to
bring it to an end.

Jack turned back
to the wall. No warm welcome this time: the rock was cool to the touch. He
spread his palms fully and concentrated on the pulse in the stone. He smiled.
The cavern had done the work for him: to entice him in it had to give him the
key. His heart now matched the beat of the core. Jack drew upon his power. He
tasted the metal on his tongue, felt the telltale pain in his head. The bands
of muscle around his stomach contracted in perfect time, and the sorcery left
his mouth with a vengeance.

The power rose up:
up above the cavern, high above the island, soaring far into the night. Up and
up it went, the sheer force of it pulling the ocean onto the shore, and
dragging the clouds into lines. Jack felt the terrible suction it created,
fought against the void it left behind. Everything--his blood, his breath, the
skin on his back-strove to soar upward with the force.

Reaching the point
where the heavens met the sky, the power slowed and began to gain weight. It
collapsed in on itself: condensing, thickening, doubling down, gaining intent
and body and mass. Jack knew without thought what be had to do, he knew without
doubt what he was born for. Everything snapped into place within the space of
an eyeblink and Jack became master of Larn. Working from memories older than
himself, using strength offered up by the seers, he shaped a custom-made weapon
to destroy the cavern's heart, and blasted it down to the source.

This time the
power didn't flow through the rock. It tore right through it.

Down the power
went. Heavier than metal, faster than a high storm, it smashed through the
cavern like a message from the gods. Jack sent it plunging through rock and
soil and minerals, down toward the core. Down to the dark primeval mass that
formed the heart of Lam. The two forces met: one ancient beyond telling, one
untried and blinding and raw. They were matched only for a quarter second, and
then the old world gave way to the new.

In the flashing
brightness of an instant, Jack's power destroyed the cavern's flow.

A single scream
rose high from the seers, and then a wave of hot air ripped through the hall of
seering.

A low rumbling
rose from beneath the stone. The cavern began to tremble. Walls began to crack.
The ground shook, rocks plummeted from the ceiling. Jack was dazed. He lay
against a seer stone as the light in the cavern began to fade. Fissures formed
in the floor, and dust flying from them choked the air. The whole thing was
collapsing. All the seers would die. There was no other way: they were never
meant to be saved.

Jack didn't have
the energy to move. Chunks of rock crashed around him. Seers keened their death
songs as the walls began to give way. The entire cavern began to churn:
rolling, fracturing, falling in upon itself. A rock grazed Jack's thigh, and
another hit his chest. The dust made it impossible to breathe. And then, in the
middle of the madness there was Tawl. Blood-soaked, bloody-eyed, badly limping
Tawl.

He grinned.
"I thought I'd find you lying down." Pushing the rocks from Jack's
body, he lifted him from the ground.

Tawl half-dragged,
half-carried him from the chamber and up through the maze of buckling corridors
toward the surface. They ran ahead of collapsing walls, dodged falling
stonework, skimmed over broken paths, and used up two lifetimes' worth of luck
in one night.

Maybor woke before
dawn. He never slept well anymore. His dreams led him down the same path every
night, and every morning he awoke with the same image tearing away at his soul:
Melli kicking and screaming to distract the guard's attention while he ran away
from the courtyard. How could a man sleep knowing that his brave and beautiful
daughter was being held by a monster? And that he might have done something to
prevent it, if only he'd been daring enough to try?

Melli wasn't dead.
Maybor had to think that to keep his sanity. There had been no word of her for
months. Occasionally reports would come in from palace servants, who told of a
mysterious woman being held in the east wing under lock and key. It hadn't taken
Maybor long to convince himself that the woman was his daughter: he
needed
something
to believe in.

"There's a
commotion going on at the south gate, m'lord," said Grift,
entering
the
tent. "Looks like they're going to open it."

"Well,
dammit, man! Don't just stand there, help me dress." Ever since Grift had
recovered from his injuries, he had acted as Maybor's equerry. The man was slow
about his work, inclined to drink and gamble, and was full of the worst advice
about women that Maybor had ever heard! Court ladies fancying field hands,
indeed! What woman would want a field hand when she could have a mighty lord?
It was insanity! In fact, the only reason why Maybor kept the guard around was
to keep track of Melli's condition. The man knew about pregnancy and women's
complaints, and whenever Maybor wanted to know how close Melli was to term, or
how she would be feeling, all he had to do was ask Grift. The guard always
began his reply with: "The Lady Melliandra is as healthy as a packhorse,
and I guarantee you she'll be doing just fine." To Maybor those words were
more precious than gold and made enduring the man's incompetence worthwhile.

Maybor picked out
a fine scarlet tunic to wear beneath his breastplate. It seemed that today they
would finally get a chance to fight Bren's army man-to-man. About time, too.

Those blackhelms
had spent the last two months hiding behind the city walls like nuns in a
convent.

"Full
armor," he said to Grift, who was busy putting a shine to the breastplate
with a gob of spit. He wasn't going to sit in the tent all day. He was going to
ride out and meet the enemy. This might be their one chance of breaking Bren's
defenses. Oh, the blackhelms were probably up to something, but whatever it
was, it would make them vulnerable.

Maybor strapped on
his shin plates, grabbed hold of his helmet, and walked out into the field. It
was cold, barely light; an icy wind that spoke of snow was blowing down from
the mountains. Lord Besik, leader of the Highwall forces, was standing outside
the command tent surrounded by his military aides. A man to be reckoned with
both physically and mentally, he spied Maybor and hailed him over.