The Sacred Hunt Duology (116 page)

To each, he nodded, and as he did, they stepped out of the circle, breaking it. At last, unbound, he turned his cold, stone gaze outward. There he saw the war-mages gathering in a grim and expectant silence; he saw the Kings' Swords and the Kings' armed defenders amassed to the North. To the West, he saw the paladins of Cartanis, who made a religion of the sword raised in just cause; with them, stood the Priests of Reymaris and the Priests of Cormaris—for in either Church, weapon skills were not uncommon. The Mother's Children were not armed to fight, but they brought to the battle their skills and talents at healing, and the Mandaros-born brought the talents of their parent to the battle as well.

“Well met,” he said, his voice the very thunder.

Almost as one, they fell to one knee.

“Follower of Bredan,” he continued, seeing through the darkness as if it did not exist.

The lone Lord of Elseth looked up.

“Free your Lord, and you will have peace.”

Then the foreign Lord lowered his dark head.

“The time is not yet,” the statue continued, speaking again to the assembly. “But the ways will be opened. Touch not what you see, and seek not to disturb it—or you will break the Compact which your Lords—and mine—have made.” He knelt upon the small, raised platform that had borne his weight for the ages, and would bear it for longer still. His sword, he lifted, one hand on either side of the long, flat hand guard, point to the ground. “Fare thee well,” he said softly. “For ere this night is past, many of you will walk upon Mandaros' fields and in his halls. Walk in honor.” Without another word, he drove the sword point groundward, into the wide pedestal upon which he stood.

Light flared around him as he knelt before the hilt of a buried sword.

Beneath his feet, the octagonal reliefs began to undulate, changing in shape and texture before the watching crowd. Where historical carvings had once told the tale of the great acts of bravery—of honor—that were Moorelas' life, only a shimmering clearness remained, like glass but thicker and somehow more liquid.

“Pass through,” the statue said, its voice already dying. “And quickly. The time is short.”

• • •

The Kings began to issue orders, girding themselves—at last—for war. Queen Siodonay stood at the head of the Kings' Swords that were her personal guard and escort. She had seen the streets of the city for weeks on end, but she was denied the conclusion of the battle. The Kings would go. If the Kings fell, it was to the Queens, and the young god-born Princes, that the Empire would turn.

Siodonay raised her chin slightly and smiled. The smile was the wolf's smile, a Northern legacy. She raised her sword, held it high a moment in salute, and then brought the side of the pommel crashing into the width of her kite shield.

The Kings' Swords at her back were silent, except in the ranks that contained men from the Northern climes; they, too, began to strike their shields with their swords. A send-off. A warrior's salute.

• • •

The Terafin stood her ground as the small army began its descent into the literal darkness. Whether they would rise again, she could not say—nor could Jewel, who stood in somber silence by her side. They had no skills to offer the Kings; they had responsibilities elsewhere in the city. Neither would set foot in the maze below.

But only Jewel was bothered by it.

They killed my kin
, she thought, as a dark shame dimmed the moment.
I owe them
.

But instead, she would let these others—Priests, mages, and warriors all—fight the battle that had started as hers. Some part of her was glad of it, too, which only made it worse.

But Jewel was no master at keeping her thoughts from her face; The Terafin noted the young woman's expression in the unnatural light that emanated from the monument.

“We would not have come this far if not for your intervention,” The Terafin said unexpectedly. “No dream would have led us to this place, and if not for this, we would have no chance at all.

“You are ATerafin, Jewel. You must learn to think beyond the fist that strikes or the dagger that draws blood. Instead of one hand, you have called upon many. Where you have no hold on the fires or the elements, the mages have come, where you cannot heal or offer succor, the priests, where you cannot fight and stand against the force of demonic skill, the warriors.” As she spoke, The Terafin drew her hood above her shoulders. “Come.”

Jewel nodded quietly, hoping that one day she would understand The Terafin's concept of honor and duty. She did not realize how much she already did.

• • •

Although they appeared to be of living glass, the walls gave no hint of what lay beyond—no darkness or light escaped. One had to walk through them to gain that knowledge, and the act was not a simple one—for each of the soldiers assembled here could see the man before them swallowed whole without a backward glance. Many of the soldiers closed their eyes or held their breath at the moment that they lifted foot or pushed arm across the threshold. But not a single one refused to follow where the Kings themselves—to the great distress of the Lord of the Compact—led.

To pass through the walls was a sensation that was at once many things: quiet, loud, pleasant, jarring—it was as if the walls themselves were the repository of the lives of the people who had come to place wreaths at the foot of Moorelas' statue—or to kiss there in the darkness that young lovers make light. But the walls that they had passed through, of glass, of light, of standing liquid, disappeared at their backs. In their place, long musty shadows that reached out to touch the half-height of what had once been towering walls. The very giants must have built the room, and assembled in it, for the hundred men and women here were dwarfed by its dimensions. The ground at their feet was marble, and gloriously worked; it had weathered the centuries with no loss to its dark luster, and the golden inlay glowed faintly with a light strong enough to see a short distance by.

“How do we leave?” one young Sentrus whispered.

No one cared to give the obvious answer.

“We will have more light,” someone said, and a new voice answered.

“NO.”

At once, swords were drawn; the gathering of the mages prepared; the Priests began to burn their braziers and murmur their low chants. But no one moved, for the figure herself was made clear as she approached.

She was not a young woman—perhaps older than Queen Marieyan—for she radiated a sure confidence, and a power, that the young rarely have. To the foot of the Kings she came, and there, at a distance of thirty yards, she knelt, dusting the ground with the hem of a cloak that seemed to make way for her knees. A trick of the light, perhaps.

The Kings glanced at each other a moment in silent conference, and then King Cormalyn spoke.

“Rise,” he said, his voice carrying in the hush of the room. “Rise and identify yourself.”

She obeyed his command quickly, unfolding her knees as if they seldom bent so. “I am Evayne,” she said softly. “Evayne a'Nolan.”

“Who are you, and what are you doing within these walls?”

“I am waiting for you, Majesty. For I have walked the hidden path, and in so doing, I have learned enough to be of service to you while our paths converge.” So saying, she pulled a shining orb from her cloak and held it beneath her chin.

“And why should we trust you?” It was the question in almost everyone's mind. Almost.

“Because, my Lord, no one living, no one sane, seeks the ascent of the darkness. Those who call themselves Allasakari have already been devoured, and those who delude themselves into thinking they will have power . . . But it is not to speak of that that I have come. I am seer-born, and the way to the undercity is treacherous. Will you accept my aid?”

“And who is Evayne a'Nolan that we should know her to be sane?” The Lord of the Compact spoke in his sharp, pointed voice.

“A friend.”

“But friend to whom? It is a matter of ease to claim friendship—and often a matter of deceit.”

“I will not force myself upon you,” the woman said quietly. “I cannot. If you will not have my aid, I will leave you.”

“No,” the Lord of the Compact said, “you will not.”

“And will you detain me?” Evayne's smile was a crack of ice between thinned lips.

To the Kings' side, from nowhere, came Kallandras the bard. He knelt in the posture of abasement before King Cormalyn's feet. “Majesty,” he said, interrupting the royal interview, “I am Master Bard Kallandras of Senniel; I have served the Crowns' circuit for my tenure. I bear this woman little love, but I will speak for her. You may trust her.”

The King raised a streaked, dark brow.

A second man came, struggling through the still crowd, and he, too, flattened himself against the floor, his white hair a spill against cool green. “Majesty,” he said, “I am Member Meralonne APhaniel of the Order of Knowledge, and of the Council of the Magi and of the Wise. This one was once . . . my student. I, too, will speak for her.”

And before the King could speak, a third man came, but he did not abase himself. He knelt, on one knee, his animals standing at rigid attention at his back, a long, plain spear beside him. “Your Majesty,” he said, speaking as if words were not his strength, “I am not Essalieyanese, but I have fought the demons and the darkness in my native lands—and you have granted me permission to hunt them here. If my word means anything to you—or to the man who speaks for you—I give it as well: I speak for Evayne.”

“I do not speak for the King,” the Lord of the Compact said, in a voice as thin as Evayne's smile had been.

“He speaks,” King Reymalyn said, his voice light with just a hint of amusement, “for the Kings' safety. We will accept your guaranties, gentlemen.”

The dark-robed woman stepped forward as the three men rose to greet her. She stopped first in front of Kallandras and met his eyes gravely. They were darkly hollow, where once they had been the sky of high summer. She started to speak, but he turned away from her; her eyes flickered at the slight, but her expression did not shift.

To Meralonne APhaniel, she also offered her silence, but in that silence was the hesitance that a student might offer a master years after the relationship has been severed. To see them, the powerful woman and the powerful man, face-to-face, made the man seem almost ageless.

“I have not forgiven your silence,” he said at last.

“I know,” was the soft reply. “But mark it well: The time is coming when my silence will be broken at your behest, and then we will both wish for the years in which I sat at your feet learning the arts.”

“Is this a seeing?”

“Yes,” she replied, already beginning to move away. “But not of the gift. Of the heart.”

Last, she came to Gilliam of Elseth, and before him—only before him—she bowed low, bending both knee and head. He caught her arm, little realizing that he was the first man to touch her in many years, and pulled her roughly to her feet. “Don't,” he said, releasing her as if she burned to the touch. “I didn't save him either. He always said the Hunter would take him. I always said—

“But tonight,” he finally added, hefting the spear, “it will all be over.”

“Hunt well, Hunter Lord,” she told him quietly. “And you, little sister. Hunt well.”

Then, schooling her face, she went to the Kings, and stood before them as a respectful peer—a Queen—might. “Your Majesties,” she said softly, bowing once. “It is not safe to use magic within the great chamber. It has . . . unusual effects, and not all of them pleasant. However, if someone should be so foolish, it will almost certainly be survived. But below, in the chamber where the Sleepers lie, any use of magic will destroy the caster. Once we are in the tunnels proper, the protections wane.”

“Very well,” King Cormalyn said coolly. “Member APhaniel, you had best impart this information to your mages.”

• • •

Evayne led them through the half-lit great chamber to the remnants of an old door frame, crossing a floor that was tiled with letters too vast, and too foreign, to be easily read. But every so often, a member of the Order of Knowledge would stop in a shock of recognition before his brothers and sisters ushered him
on into darkness. Twice, the hint of magic flared in the chamber; once, it fizzled, and the second time it turned into a moving, noisy display of fire-lights. There was no third time, and although the Priests and the soldiers ground their teeth in annoyance, the mages at least lent their sympathy to one whose specialty of study had suddenly, dramatically, taken on new life—and one who was never going to be able to wring answers from the discovery, to examine it, or to learn from it.

At last the gathering stopped in front of a door through which ten men might easily move abreast. Or rather, a frame; the door was missing, although the hinges and joints were still there. As the walls did, the frame disappeared into the darkness above, but it was clear that the doors had been much, much taller when this hall had last seen light—if it ever had.

“Here,” Evayne said, staring into the darkness, “we begin our descent. Light your lamps, if you have them, or your torches—but
do not
rely on magery to guide your steps.”

As if she were a stone in a pond, word rippled in an ever wider circle at her back, and with it came the meager light of torches; lamps were carried by the Priests who attended the Exalted, and the Astari who attended the Kings. She waited, arms crossed, violet eyes seeing into the shadows that blanketed the landing. At last, the Kings' men gave their ready signal, and she began to lead them toward a large set of stairs.

In width, the staircase was at least the match of the door frame to the great chamber. But its finer detailing had not been lost completely to time and accident, and when foot was placed upon the foremost step, a hollow chime sounded. There was a momentary panic, but Evayne lifted a hand.