The Briar King (76 page)
Authors: Greg Keyes
“Yes, we haven't discussed it much since then.” He sighed. “You know how priests receive the blessing of the saints?”
“A little. They visit fanes and pray.”
“Yes. But not just any fanes.” He waved at the mound. “That's a sedos. It's a place where a saint once stood, and left some bit of his presence. Visiting one sedos doesn't confer a blessing, though, or at least not usually. You have to find a trail of them, a series of places visited by the same saint, or by aspects of that saint. The fanes—like that building there— have no power themselves. The power comes from the sedos— the fane is just a reminder, a place to help us focus our attention in the saint's presence. I walked the faneway of Saint Decmanis, and he gifted me with the heightened senses I have now. I can remember things a month after as clearly as if they just
happened. Decmanis is a saint of knowledge; monks who walk other faneways receive other blessings. The faneway of Mamres, for instance, conveys martial gifts on those who walk it. Great strength, alacrity, an instinct for killing, those sorts of things.”
“Like Desmond Spendlove.”
“Yes. He walked the faneway of Mamres.”
“So this is part of a faneway?” Winna asked. “But the bodies…”
“It's new,” Stephen said. “Look at the stone. There's no moss or lichen, no weather stains. This might have been built yesterday. The renegade monks and Sefry who were following the Greffyn were using it to find old sedoi in the forest. I think it had the power to scent them out, and made a circuit of those which still had some latent power. Then Desmond and his bunch performed sacrifices, I think to try to find out what saint the sedoi belonged to. I also don't think they were doing it right—they lacked certain information. Whoever did this did it correctly.” He passed his palm over his eyes. “And it's my fault. When I was at d'Ef I translated ancient, forbidden scrifts concerning these things. I gave them the information they needed to do what you see here.” He shook, looking paler than ever. “They're building a faneway, you see?”
“Who?” Aspar said. “Spendlove and his renegades are dead.”
“Not all of them,” Stephen said. “This was built after we killed Spendlove.”
“But what saint left his mark here?” Winna whispered.
Stephen retched again, rubbed his forehead, and stood straight again.
“It's my place to find that out,” he said.
“All of you, wait here—please.”
Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsold or destroyed” and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.
This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming edition of
The Charnel Prince
by Greg Keyes. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
The Briar King
is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
A Del Rey® Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2003 by J. Gregory Keyes
Excerpt from
The Charnel Prince
by Greg Keyes copyright © 2004
by J. Gregory Keyes
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-307-56563-1
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