Nightrunners 03 - Traitor's Moon (40 page)

"Here," the man instructed, lifting the leather door flap. "Leave your clothes outside."

Stripping off everything but the silver mask, Seregil crawled inside. It was stifling and stank of sweat and wet wool; a small fissure emitted a steady flow of hot vapor. Seregil crawled to a rush mat next to the steam vent. His guide waited until he was seated, then dropped the flap back into place. Blackness closed quickly in around Seregil; the man's footsteps faded back in the direction they'd come.

What am I so scared of?
he wondered, fighting down the panic that threatened to unman him.
They finished with me, passed sentence. It's over. I'm here now by Iia'sidra dispensation, a representative of the Skalan queen.

Why didn't someone come?

Sweat drenched his body, stinging the scabbed abrasions on his back and sides. It dripped from the tip of his nose to pool in the contours inside the mask. He hated the feel of it, hated the darkness and the irrational sense that the walls were pressing in on him.

He'd never feared the dark, not even as a child.

Except here. Then.

And now.

He crossed his arms across his bare chest, shaking in spite of the heat. He couldn't fight off the wolves of memory here. They rushed at him, wearing the faces of all the rhui'auros who'd interrogated him. They'd woven their magic deep into his mind, pulling out thoughts and fears like so many rotten teeth.

Now, as he huddled trembling and sick, other memories followed, ones he'd buried even deeper: the sharp sting of his father's hand against his face when he'd tried to say farewell; the way friends

had refused to meet his eye; the sight of the only home he'd ever known or hoped to dwindling to nothing in the distance—

Still no one came.

His breath whistled harshly through the mask. The dhima trapped the steam, searing his lungs. Stretching out his arms, he felt for the wooden ribs on either side of him to reassure himself that the sodden walls were not collapsing in on him. His fingers brushed hot wood and rested there. A moment later, however, he let out a sharp hiss of surprise as something hot and smooth skittered over his left hand. Before he could pull it back, the unseen creature had clenched itself around his wrist. Needle teeth pierced the fleshy part of his palm just below the thumb, spreading quickly to engulf his entire hand.

A dragon, and one at least the size of a cat, judging by the weight.

Seregil willed himself not to move. The beast released him, dropped to his naked thigh, and scrambled away.

Seregil held still until he was certain it was gone, then cradled his hand against his chest. What was a dragon that size doing so far from the mountains, and how venomous was such a bite? This made him think of Thero, and he choked back an hysterical laugh.

"That will leave a lucky mark."

Seregil jerked his head up. Less than a foot to his left squatted the glowing, naked form of a rhui'auros. The man's broad face looked vaguely familiar. He had thickly drawn markings on his large hands. His muscular chest was covered with others that seemed to move with a life of their own as he reached to examine Seregil's wound.

There was no light; Seregil couldn't even see his own hand, but he could see the rhui'auros as clearly as if they both sat in daylight.

"I remember you. Your name is Lhial."

"And you are called the Exile now, yes? The Dragon now follows the Owl."

This last phrase sounded familiar somehow, but he couldn't place it, though he recognized the two references to Aura: the dragons of Aurenen, the owls of Skala.

The rhui'auros cocked his head, regarding him quizzically. "Come, little brother, let me see your newest wound."

Seregil didn't move. This was one of those who'd interrogated him. "Why did you ask me to come here?" he asked at last, his voice hardly more than a hoarse whisper.

"You have been on a long journey. Now you have returned."

"You cast me out," Seregil retorted bitterly.

The rhui'auros smiled. "To live, little brother. And you have. Now give me your hand before it swells any more."

Baffled, Seregil watched as his hand became visible at the rhui'auros's touch. A soft glow spread out from the two of them, brightening the tiny chamber and making both of them visible. Lhial moved closer so that their bare knees touched.

Prodding gently at one of the bruises on Seregil's chest, he shook his head. "This accomplishes nothing, little brother. There is other work ahead for you."

Turning his attention to Seregil's hand, he inspected the bite. Parallel lines of punctures oozed blood on the lower palm and the back of his hand where the dragon's jaws had clamped around the base of his thumb. The rhui'auros produced a vial of lissik and massaged the dark salve into the wound. "You remember that night you were brought here?" he asked, not looking up.

"How could I not?"

"Do you know why?"

"To be tried. To be exiled."

Lhial smiled to himself. "Is that what you've thought, all these years?"

"Why then?"

"To tinker with your fate, little brother."

"I don't believe in fate."

"And you suppose that makes any difference?"

The rhui'auros looked up with an amused smile, and Seregil recoiled against the dhima wall. Lhial's eyes had gone the color of hammered gold.

An image leapt into Seregil's mind: the shining golden eyes of the khtir'bai gazing at him from the darkness that night in the Asheks.

You have much to do, son of Korit.

"I walk the banks of time," Lhial told him softly. "Looking at you, I see all your births, all your deaths, all the works the Lightbearer has prepared for you. But time is a dance of many steps and missteps. Those of us who see must sometimes act. Dwai sholo was not your dance. I made certain of that the night you were brought here, and so you were spared for other labors. Some you have already accomplished."

"Was Nysander's death part of this dance?"

The golden eyes blinked slowly. "What you and he accomplish together is. He dances willingly, your friend. His khi soars like a hawk from beneath your broken sword. He dances still. So should you."

Tears blurred Seregil's vision. He swiped at them with his free hand, then looked up into eyes again blue and full of concern.

"Does it hurt, little brother?" Lhial asked, patting Seregil's cheek.

"Not so much now."

"That's good. It would be a shame to damage such clever hands." Lhial settled back against the far wall, then snatched something from the shadows above his head and tossed it to Seregil.

He caught it and found himself clutching an all-too-familiar sphere of glass the size of a plum. He could see his own startled reflection on its dark, slightly roughened surface.

"They weren't black," he whispered, holding it in his cupped palm.

"Dreams," the rhui'auros said with a shrug.

"What is it?"

"What is it?" Lhial mimicked, and tossed him two more before he could put the first aside.

Seregil caught one but missed the last. It shattered next to his right knee, splattering him with maggots. He froze for an instant, then brushed them away in revulsion.

"There are many others," the rhui'auros said with a grin, pitching more of the orbs at him.

Seregil managed to catch five before another broke. This one released a puff of snow that sparkled in the air for an instant before melting away.

Seregil scarcely had time to consider this before the rhui'auros tossed him more. Another broke, releasing a brilliant green butterfly from a Bokthersan summer meadow. And another, splashing him with dark, clotted blood flecked with bone. More and more flew from the rhui'auros's fingers, one after another, until Seregil was surrounded by a small pile of them.

"Clever hands, indeed, to catch so many," Lhial remarked approvingly.

"What are they?" Seregil asked again, not daring to move for fear of breaking more.

"They are yours."

"Mine? I've never seen them before."

"They are yours," the rhui'auros insisted. "Now you must gather them all and take them away with you. Go on, little brother, gather them up."

The same feeling of helplessness he had in the dreams threatened to overwhelm him now. "I can't. There are too many. At least let me get my shirt."

The rhui'auros shook his head. "Hurry now. It's time to go. You can't leave unless you take them all."

The rhui'auros's eyes shone gold again as he stared through the curling steam at him, and fear closed in around Seregil.

Standing as best he could in the low chamber, he tried to gather an armload, but like eggs, they slipped from his grasp and smashed, releasing filth, perfumes, snatches of music, fragments of charred bone. He couldn't move without crushing them, or knocking them out of sight into the shadows.

"It's impossible!" he cried. "They're
not
mine. I don't want them!"

"Then you must choose, and soon," Lhial told him, his tone at once kind and merciless. "Smiles conceal knives."

The light disappeared, plunging Seregil into darkness.

"Smiles conceal knives," Lhial whispered again, so close to Seregil's ear that he jumped and flung out a hand. It found nothing but empty air. He waited a moment, then cautiously reached out again.

The spheres were gone.

Lhial was gone.

Disoriented, angry, and no wiser than when he had entered, Seregil crawled to the door but couldn't find it. Feeling his way along the wall with his good hand, he made several circuits of the tiny chamber before giving up; the door was gone, too.

He returned to the mat and settled there miserably, arms wrapped around his knees. The rhui'auros's parting words, the strange glass spheres that now haunted his waking life as well as his dreams— there must be some meaning behind it all. He knew in his gut that there was, but Bilairy take him if he could find the pattern.

Tearing the mask off, he wiped the sweat from his eyes and rested his forehead against his knees.

"Thank you for the enlightenment, Honored One," he snarled.

Seregil woke in the public meditation chamber. His head hurt, he was dressed, and the silver mask was in place again. He held his left hand up and found it whole. No dragon bite. No lissik stain. He almost regretted it; it would have been a fine mark. Had he gone down to the cavern at all, he wondered, or had the dreaming smoke here simply carried him into a vision?

Getting up as quickly as the pounding behind his eyes allowed, he discovered Alec sitting on a nearby pallet. A mask still covered his

face, and he seemed to be staring off across the room, lost in thought.

Seregil rose to go to him. As he did so, something slipped from the folds of his coat and rolled away toward the stairwell—a small orb of black glass. Before he could react, it rolled over the edge and was lost without a sound. Seregil stared after it for a moment, then went to rouse Alec.

Alec started when Seregil touched his shoulder. "Can we leave now?" he whispered, getting unsteadily to his feet.

"Yes, I think we've been dismissed."

Removing their masks, they left them on the floor beside the dozing doorkeeper and let themselves out.

Alec looked dazed, overwhelmed by whatever had happened to him in the tower. Leading his horse by the reins, he set out on foot. He said nothing, but Seregil sensed a weight of sadness pressing down on him. Reaching out, he pulled Alec to a stop and saw that he was crying.

"What is it, tali? What happened to you in there?"

"It wasn't—it wasn't what I expected. You were right about my mother. She was killed by her own people right after I was born. The rhui'auros showed me. Her name was Ireya a Shaar."

"Well, that's a start." Seregil moved to put an arm around him, but Alec pulled away.

"Is there a clan called the Akavi'shel?"

"Not that I know of. The word means 'many bloods.' "

Alec bowed his head as more tears came. "Just another word for mongrel. Always and never—"

"What else did he tell you?" Seregil asked softly.

"That I'd never have any children."

Alec's evident distress took Seregil by surprise. "The rhui'auros are seldom that clear about anything," he offered. "What exactly did he say?"

"That I would father a child of no mother," Alec replied. "Seems clear enough to me."

It did, and Seregil kept quiet for a moment, working it around in his mind. At last he said, "I didn't know you wanted children."

Alec let out a harsh sound, half-laugh, half-sob. "Neither did I! I mean, I'd never given it a lot of thought before. It was just something I assumed would happen sooner or later. Any man wants children, doesn't he? To carry his name?"

The words went through Seregil like a blade. "Not me," he replied quickly, trying to make light of the matter. "But then, I wasn't raised

a Dalnan. You didn't think
I
was going to bear you any babes, did you?"