The Sacred Hunt Duology (104 page)

Gilliam looked up bleakly.

The God's smile vanished as he met his follower's gaze. Gilliam pulled back as Espere whined—for in the eyes of the God was a terrible longing. Almost a fear. “It is time,” the Lord of the Hunt said. “I have fulfilled my oath.” He lifted a hand and a trail of gold-edged light pierced the darkness. “Fulfill you now your people's.” The Horn came to him. “Take this, and wind it on the Day. Call me, as the Hunters of Breodanir have called throughout time.”

Gilliam struggled in the silence a moment before he spoke a single uninflected word. “Why?”

“Why?”

“Why should I obey you?”

A glint of red beneath the tines of the antlered God; a glimmer of simmering anger. Then, “Because you have given your oath to my service.”

“I'm not a Priest.”

“There are no true Priests left.
Allasakar
saw to that.” As he spoke the name of the Lord of the Hells, the air snapped and crackled with his anger made manifest. “But I will tell you this, although your boldness displeases me. With the spear that was hewn from the Fields of the Guardians, you shall hunt me.

“For it is my time. Kill the body of the beast, Hunter Lord, and I will no longer be wrapped in mortal flesh, or trapped in mortal lands. Hunt, as you have been trained to hunt, and you
will
find your quarry.”

“And if he does as you ask?” Evayne said. “If he frees you from these lands, will there be no more Sacred Hunts? Will his death be the final death?” She did not name him; she did not need to.

The God turned then to Evayne as she stood with her burden: a quiet, injured dog. “While Breodanir exists, the Hunt will be called,” he said. “The earth will take its due, or in the Hunters' lands, there will be no spring.”

Grim but satisfied, Gilliam nodded; if there was relief at the Hunter God's reply, it did not show. He held out his hand, and the simple Horn came to it as if called.

“Daughter of my kin, you know what is at risk here. Lead him, if you can.
Guide him. For there are no forests in this small and crowded space, and we face the twilight and the darkness is almost nigh. It is in Averalaan that the Hunt will be called.” He lowered his chin to meet her gaze. “For the Hunter, the Hunt is all. But you are not a Hunter.”

She stared beyond him, to the body that lay unmoving in shadows. She even nodded, and as she did, the hood of her robes fell away, revealing her face. Her eyes were reddened, but her smooth, young skin was very, very pale.

“You do not understand,” he said; it was not a question.

• • •

She did not answer. Instead, she walked steadily and quietly toward him, holding the dog as if he were a shield. He was. For Evayne knew little, but she knew this: Only she could walk the Path, and it would not take her if she carried any other living thing. She was not ready to leave, not yet.

The words that the God spoke made a dim and distant sense, but they did not touch her.
The soul still resides within me, trapped. . . .
She could not look at him, so she looked at the dog's head instead, at its flat, triangular gray and brown fur, at its floppy ears. It was heavy, this dog, but not so heavy that she couldn't hold it for just a moment longer.

Don't stop me
, she thought, and he didn't. She walked past him, past the light that he shed, and into the shadows.

There, kneeling slowly and carefully, she came to rest beside the body of Stephen of Elseth. Huntbrother. Friend. She'd brought him to this, somehow; she was certain of it. Kallandras was right; he was always right. She was like death, but less merciful.

I didn't mean it
, she told him, looking into his still face. His body was rent like so much thin fabric; blood, sticky and red, was cooling everywhere. But his face was untouched. Pressing the dog firmly into her lap with her left hand, she reached out with her right one and touched his
cold
cheek.

The body was nothing. She'd heard it before from any number of priests. Even the one who called himself her parent said this over and over, as if it was supposed to render death meaningless. As if it did away with loss.

Angrily, she shoved the dog aside and sat beside Stephen, pulling his head into her lap; trying to give him a place to rest.

She cried out once in pain and anger and denial, and then cried out in surprise. When she rose, gingerly lifting Stephen's head and setting it once again against the cold floor, her face was the face of a woman of power, not a tortured girl. But her lips still bore the faint twist of a pain renewed.

She saw the God, and he her; he turned to face her.

“I hoped never to see this place again,” she told him gravely.

“Perhaps you never will. But that was a child's hope, and this is not a children's war.”

“Children will die in it,” she answered softly, “and most certainly,” she added, staring through the wall of mist as if she could see through it, “they
will
fight in it. But I believe I understand why it is I who am here.”

“I cannot remain here long,” the God said. “The forests of Leoganti provide some protection against the ruin of the world, and I must return to them—already, my time is dwindling and the pull of forgetfulness and the wild is growing.” He stopped a moment, staring into the mists as if they were a seer's ball. “Allasakar seeks to break the Covenant. He will; it can be done.”

“It is to stop him that I have labored,” she replied, but she did not meet his eyes.

“The Hunt will be called in this city, Evayne a'Nolan, for I believe that our enemy is here. Call the Hunt in the proper place, and before I ascend, I will fight him.”

“And will you win?” she asked coolly. “Will you take an oath to end his threat forever?”

“I take no oath I cannot fulfill, as well you know.” He paused. “It is dangerous to judge a God, little one.”

“It is dangerous to have anything to do with Gods.” She lifted a proud head, and the robes that she wore rose to frame her face. “Especially if you are not one.” Her gaze touched darkness, and skittered shyly off Stephen's body. His corpse.

“Evayne,” he said, “if it were not for the ability of the mortals to choose, what threat would any of us be? The Covenant—”

“The Covenant was not enough!”

He stared at her oddly, the light glimmering in his eyes like sun at midday. “Not enough?” he said softly, the voices a whisper. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. You are mortal; you are of this world. Make of it what you will. Come the first of Veral, if you wish to have a world that is not an extension of the Hells, you will call the Hunt.”

“Oh, the Hunt will be called,” she said bitterly. “For Gilliam of Elseth
is
a Hunter. The Gods will continue to have an even field on which to play their games.”

“Games?” The tines of the Hunter God began to fade, dissolving into air and nothingness. The pale, scarred brow of a slender, ageless man remained. He was tall, this man; taller than Meralonne APhaniel; taller than any mortal Evayne had ever met—and she had met many. “I pity you,” he said softly. “For you do not understand all that is at stake. Our power is not like the studies of the mage-born; not even like the compulsion of the healer-born to the hurt. It is older than time, and stronger; it compels us, and it will not be denied.

“And now, I have truly said enough.” He turned very carefully, and before anyone could stop him, gathered up Stephen of Elseth's limp body, cradling it as if it were a child's. “The earth,” he said sadly, “demands its due. We shall return home, he and I.”

Gilliam bore it proudly, lifting his chin as he stared with a terrible longing at the Hunter's burden. And then, before the tears could start, the Hunter was gone, dwindling in the sight as if a great distance had come upon them unawares. He waited until he could no longer see a thing; until even the afterimage of bright light against his vision had faded completely into darkness. Then he turned to Evayne.

“Get me the Spear,” he said. Dreams of death. Of vengeance. Of killing.

She nodded, seeing death as it hovered about the lines of his face. Like a bruise, the marks took a little time to darken; he was in shock. Her face was well-schooled; she offered him no pity, and even the horror of her youth fell away before the shadow of his loss. It was one of the few things they shared, although he could not and would not admit it yet. And she would not ask.

He turned to walk away; his knees, and not his feet, hit the floor. Behind him, someone gasped; he flipped over, reaching for a dagger, as Espere approached.

“G-Gilliam,” she said, as if the name did not come easily, “you are hurt.” She offered him a hand, and he stared at it—at her—as if he understood neither. She pulled back, hurt, and he pulled farther away, gaining his feet clumsily.

“Lord Elseth,” Evayne said darkly, “this
is
Espere. She is bound to her father's life, and while he lives upon this world, she is bound to his season. For a week or two, she is as human, but over a space of days, the wilderness that binds her father destroys her as well.

“She is
not
an animal, no matter how much you might wish otherwise.”

He bristled and began to speak, but Espere raised a hand to his lips. It surprised them both. “I am not human either,” she said. “And will not ever be.” She stared at her Lord, her eyes gold and brown. “But help me, and I will be all I can be in your service.”

“Well said.” Evayne looked faintly chagrined. “My apologies, Espere. You are not an animal, but you are also not a child. You were sent to choose, and you have chosen well.” She bowed, her robes fluttering above the ground like trapped butterflies. “I shall see you both; Corvil is not yet finished, and Henden must pass before the Hunt is called.”

9th of Corvil, 410 A.A.

Terafin

B
LACKNESS.

Not the darkness between lid and eye that vanishes with waking, but darker and deeper; the blackness between the living and the dead.

Ashfel's gray head rested against his ash paws; he licked the ground and looked into the shadows. Salas, made gray by an evening uninterrupted by torchlight or lamplight, stood to the side, whining softly. Connel rested in his master's bed, his leg bound by a splint and wrapped round with heavy, padded gauze. The air did not carry the familiar sounds or scents of the rest of the small pack of dogs that had followed Gilliam to Averalaan; they lay on biers of an elaborate and foreign design, although the man—the domicis—had taken great pains to treat the fallen as they would have been treated in Breodanir.

Espere was nowhere to be found. Nor did Gilliam wish her to be there; she could interrupt his silence with the unfamiliar sound of a voice that did not bark or growl or whine—with a voice that reminded him, measure for measure, of the God that had fathered her. The Hunter Lord.

He should not have let the God take the body.

But was he to let Stephen be forever buried beneath foreign ground? Was he to be laid to rest in a land where he would not be honored, his death at most a curiosity, and at the least, something that no one—not a single person here—could fathom the importance of?

He stood in the darkness, asking questions in the silence that there were no answers for; repeating them over and over as if, by doing so, he might finally receive an answer he liked.

His arms ached; the wound across his chest, the gash below his rib cage, throbbed. If they had hurt a little more, if they had been a little deeper, Stephen would not have had to die.

Bowing his head, he twined his fists beneath his chin in a gesture that was more accusation than prayer. The fact of a death did not bother him; the fact that
the Allasakari had, in numbers, died without effect came as little surprise. The Hunter Hunted the Hunters. That was the law.

But it was Stephen who had died.

I'll protect you.

I'll protect you.

And Stephen was stupid. Always had been. He'd been
comforted
by the lie.

He could not sleep. He had tried. But in his dreams only death had any viscerality; he longed for it, and in the privacy of a space that not even his dogs could touch, he hated Stephen for being the one who had passed into the Hunter's Wood.

Because he knew that Stephen had chosen that death.

He cried out, although no sound escaped his lips. Ashfel whined and raised his nose, but Gilliam could not—would not—respond. They held him back, these two. Pulling his hands apart, he spun, crouched and ready to face anything.

Nothing was there.

I'll protect you.

Stephen was dead.

• • •

Papers gathered dust on the table beneath the grand window of The Terafin's library. She had sent for them, had laid them out with great care that she might study them further. But those that were important—death writs, and writs for the proper funds to be sent to the bereaved families of her fallen guards—had already been dealt with, and what remained was far too workaday to command her greater attention.

Morretz was nowhere in sight, at her command; there were no servants, no attendants, no one carrying trays of food, dishes of water, changes of clothing. Here, there was privacy, and it was as much as she could hope for. It would not last long.

Her slender fingers furled into shaking fists; she forced them to relax, studying her hands as if they belonged to someone else. They almost did.

Ah, Cormaris.

But she was not Arann of the young Jewel's den; she would not deny Alowan's power to be free from the pain and the loss that followed it. She wondered, for the hundredth time, where the healer was—but at the same time knew that she had but to walk to the healerie and she would find him, white-haired and bent, in the pursuit of his duties and his responsibilities. Perhaps his hair might be a little whiter, if that were possible; his face a bit more lined. He knew who he was.

And she?

The Terafin, of course. And The Terafin was the strength of the House.

Her eyes were not dry as she rose. She wore black and gold; the colors of respectful mourning. The dress itself was thin and plain in line, but it had been
made by Allerie of Courtis herself, and cost dearly. Her hair, tended to by dry-eyed silent valets, was beaded with ebony and drawn tight in a fine-meshed net that glittered under light. No other adornment was necessary.

Silent, she rose; silent, she crossed the room, squaring her shoulders before she opened the doors and walked into the world again.

• • •

Jewel waited in a tense and weary silence. Torvan was still alive—how, after the attack of that creature, she didn't know—but she wasn't allowed to see him. He was under some sort of fancy house arrest, and it was very hard to get more information than that.

Which wasn't, of course, why she was tense.

“Heard anything yet?” It was Carver, jogging her left elbow.

“Not since the fiftieth time you asked, no,” she snapped.

Angel sauntered into the kitchen, dragging his left hand through his bangs as he took up his spot against the wall. They both turned to stare at him. “Well?”

He shrugged. “Bad night,” he said. “For all of us.”

“Then the gates—”

“You've seen the grounds, right?”

“We've seen 'em,” Jewel replied tersely. The gardeners were out in beleaguered force, and most of the other servants stayed well enough away from the charred and burned ruin of the flower beds and the shrubs. The trees had been singed; heavy branches had come down in at least three places but the trees themselves looked as if they would survive. “Mage-fire?”

“Yeah. But not as bad as that—
our
mage killed most of 'em at the start.”

“And?”

“Darias men, all of them—at least by their colors. Pretty well-run show; they were supposed to attract most of the House attention up front while their boys in the back did the other stuff.”

Other stuff. Jewel snorted. Angel had such a way with words. “And?”

“They outnumbered the guards at the gate at the start, but the gates were sealed somehow by the mage. Got through 'em anyway, by destroying part of the wall.”

Enough, Jewel thought. She jumped up and out of her chair, walked over to her den-kin, and grabbed him by the collars.
“What about Arann?”

Carver started to laugh before Angel could get out another word.

“Did I forget to say he was all right?”

• • •

Meralonne APhaniel sat under the open sky in the empty amphitheater. Waves lapped at the seawall a hundred yards to the west, but the gulls were quiet, and only the insects disturbed his peace. He sat on a hard bench in the cool night air, cradling his arm absently.

There were stars; beneath the farthest edge of the canopy, their light danced in absurd glory from a distance that time had done little to diminish. Watching them was soothing now, where once it had been painful.

There were things that gold could not buy; peace was one. Wincing, he shifted position. Dawn was hours off, but it would come, and he did not wish to witness it. For with the dawn, there would be questions, answers, legalities,
rules.

He did not know if he had won. And for one fragile moment, he didn't care. To be tested in battle—to be tested and to pass—was enough. Or it had been, in his youth. The chills that shook his body were deep; to escape the summoned beast he had used what remained of his power, and more besides.

The sky was a winter sky, dark and cool.

• • •

Mage-fevers racked his body. His lips were cracked and dry, except where blood moistened them; the seizures were severe.

The room was dark and shuttered. Cracks of light glimmered between the uncurtained wooden slats; this was a haven of last resort, and as a last resort, it had not been chosen for finery or appointment. Above, there was the sound of argument; beneath, the sound of moving chairs and tables that might indicate someone actually cleaned their home in this sorry tenement.

The thirst came on again. It was weaker this time; he was glad of it. With no power at all to spare—with too much borrowed too close to the source of his life—he hadn't the ability to force a stranger into temporary servitude.

Sor na Shannen
, he thought, although that took almost too much strength,
I will pull your name from the bowels of the hells.

If she remained upon the world. The kin were like their Lord; they wore flesh and form decreed by mortal lands. To kill their bodies sent them home, devoid of the power they needed to rule. A grisly fate, that.

He did not know, not yet; in his weakened state even an imp would be able to feed off his eyes with impunity. He did not dare return to Vexusa. The rules of the Hells were remarkably simple: the strong preyed on the weak. It was not an end he wished to risk.

He coughed, pulling the blankets close and wrapping them round his body. The ways to the undercity were closed; to arrive there at all, he needed more power than most of the mages in the city would ever know.

He would have it if he survived the fevers.

• • •

The tenth of Corvil dawned beneath a shroud of wind and drizzle; the tang of the sea touched lip and tongue. The Priests of the trinity had come, but not to lay the dead to rest; they attended the Exalted, with ceremony, with conviction, with dedication—and with a hint of nervousness.

If you wished to gain an audience with the Exalted, you traveled to
them.
You
paid your obeisance, you made your offering—at that, usually a generous one—and you waited a gracious and appropriate period of time while the god-born rulers of the Churches extricated themselves from their responsibilities.

You did not, upon a single day's notice, request the presence of each of the three and
receive
it for any less a death than that of the Kings or the Queens. And yet, in the sparse gardens of Terafin, upon a hastily constructed pavilion, not one, but three of the Exalted stood, practically shoulder to shoulder in grim silence—to preside over the First Day rites, not of The Terafin herself, but of her servants.

Brother Mayadar, ceremonial officiant, clerk, and general gadabout for the Exalted of the Mother, paled further—if that were possible—when he saw the elaborate and graceful biers, circled by white-flowered wreaths, that contained, of all things,
dogs.
It was
outrageous.

The sniffs of a few other members of the large delegation told him clearly that he was not the only Priest present to feel so. Really, The Terafin's power had obviously gone to her head—such hubris, such arrogance, was
not
to be encouraged. The Exalted of the Mother had little tolerance for self-aggrandizement; she would put The Terafin in her proper place, she would.

He knelt stiffly, as did the brothers and sisters chosen to attend her at this function. They formed the Mother's Circle and then waited while the Priests of Cormaris and Reymaris joined them upon the dais, in smaller circles to either side. Acknowledgment that the Mother was the source of all life.

Surrounded by their servitors, the Exalted stood.

As one, the Chosen of Terafin knelt before their Lord in three unbroken lines. The House Guards were already kneeling, and Brother Mayadar noticed that there were servants in attendance. An older man was obviously hissing instructions at them—they were so poorly brought up they didn't know how to behave in the presence of the Exalted. Outrageous.

The Terafin, last of all, fell to one knee and bowed her head.

Which left a lone man upon his feet.

He was broad of chest and dark of hair, but too fair of complexion to be a Southerner. At his feet, standing almost at attention, were three more dogs. One was an even and perfect gray, one gray with brown markings, and one brown with white boots—and a splinted leg. They looked unnatural, even magical; they did not move at all.

All eyes fell upon this stranger and his entourage. If stares alone had weight, he would have crumpled to the ground at once, planting his face in embarrassed obeisance into the nearby dirt. But he met all glances with pride and thinly veiled anger; after a minute it became clear that it was not ignorance of the custom that kept him on his feet. He had no intention of showing the proper respect for the Exalted.

Brother Mayadar chanced a stray glance at the Exalted of the Mother; she was
staring past him, and past the standing stranger, to the biers upon which the dogs had been laid to rest. Satisfied, she nodded.

The Terafin rose. “Exalted,” she said, speaking first to the Mother's Daughter. “You grace us with your presence.”

The Priests shuffled to the side to allow the Exalted free passage; when she had broken the perimeter of their circle, they were free to stand. “Terafin,” the Exalted said. “It has been long since you have graced
us
with your presence. But we have received your word, and we will do what we can to lay your kin to rest.” She walked to the biers, the hem of her robes trailing the crimson carpets that had been placed above the wooden planks. Stopping at the first body that lay against linen and silk, she bent and touched the forehead with a slightly bent hand. The frozen rictus beneath her fingers seemed almost to shudder.

Pale, she lifted her head and signaled to her followers.

A burning brazier, hung from a brass pole by a slender chain, was lit; fire flared a moment as she spoke over it, and then a sweet, thick smoke wafted landward in the breeze. She lifted the tiara from her forehead, and with great care removed the finely detailed and embroidered overrobes that were the symbol of her office; these she handed to one of the brothers.