The Sacred Hunt Duology (13 page)

Evayne held out one hand, and Meralonne gave her a piece of paper. It was a letter from Zoraban ATelvise. Something about the name was familiar; it nagged at her thoughts, holding knowledge just out of range of her immediate memory. “Who is he?”

“Zoraban? The head of the Order in Breodanir.”

“The head of the—” She went pale. “I remember now.”

“Remember what?” It was a sharp question, sharply worded. Meralonne's steel-gray eyes were narrowed to a dangerous edge; they glinted like blades. It was clear, from the color of Evayne's face and the momentary twist of her features, that the memories were not pleasant ones.

She fell silent; it was her only defense against the mistake she would otherwise make. The otherwhen held its secrets, and her life was hostage to them. She remembered, as she always did at times like this, the first step that she had taken on the path. She stood beside a figure whose features shifted so regularly and so completely she could not describe him at all. He spoke with a voice that was a multitude of voices, and gestured with an arm that was an infant's, an old man's, a brash youth's.
For the sake of the world
, he said,
I will let you walk my path at your father's behest. But it is
my
path, and I share it with only you, child. You will share it with no other. Remember this: that what is, is; what will be, will be. You are your own time, and you must live as if your time is all there is. You will never be able to change your actions,
once taken. What you choose to do now, at forty you must abide by, as any other mortal; you cannot reverse it by use of the otherwhen, no matter how hard you try. And if you try . . .
He lifted a hand, and the path became molten, bubbling and hissing inches away from her toes.
There will be no path, and no future for you. After all, time will still exist, no matter who wins the war.

And will I control this path?

He laughed. She could still hear it, a mixture of anger and sorrow.
Who claims control of his own destiny? Not I, not you. The path will take you where you need to go, little sister.

Meralonne hated her silence. It was these impenetrable spaces that had driven distance between them and kept it there over the years. He watched her still face, her opaque eyes, the way she bit her lower lip. He saw the struggle in her rigid stance.

Perhaps, had he not given his word at the outset of his tutelage, he would have forced the issue; he did not. But he returned silence with silence, and the distance between them grew a little larger still.

At last, she started, and turned to face him.

“What would you have of me, Evayne?”

“If you would, I would have you watch the girl. She is safer here than anywhere in Essalieyan, and until we understand what the demon-kin want with her—until we know which mage summoned it—I think she must be kept safe.”

“Agreed.” A thin stream of smoke trailed out of the corner of his mouth. For a moment, he resembled a dragon in the center of his messy hoard. “And you?”

“I don't know.” She turned to face the blank wall of the mage's study; it was the only clear space in the room. “This has something to do with the Breodanir God. The Hunting God.”

“Evayne, it hasn't been proved to the Order's satisfaction that such a god even exists.”

“If he doesn't,” she said, her voice sharp with sudden pain, “his avatar most certainly does.” She bit her lip as the words left her in a rush. She wasn't thinking clearly, but she never did where Stephen of Elseth was concerned.

“I see.” Meralonne raised both pipe and brow in unconscious unison. “Very well. I will see to the girl's safety. But you, student, you look peaked. I recommend something foreign to your nature: sleep.”

She smiled bitterly and nodded. “I'll take my old room, if you don't mind.”

“Evayne?” She turned back, framed by the door. Her eyes were shadowed with fatigue that was not feigned. “One day, I demand an explanation.”

“One day,” she said, as she always did, “I will give you everything you demand.” It was as much an apology or explanation as either was willing to give.

“Tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow.”

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING,
when Evayne returned to her master's study, she was forty years old.

It was not immediately obvious, for she wore the same robes that she always did, and the hood was pulled high and hung just over her forehead. But her stance had altered, and her gait had a surety that at twenty-eight she had not possessed. Her voice was a touch lower, her words, when she spoke at all, direct.

She did not speak now. The familiarity of the study returned to her slowly, as if from a great distance. Her hands shook as she touched the outer frame of the door through which she had passed, day after day, in her youth. The otherwhen had been kinder then, although she had not appreciated it.

She had seen—

Closing her eyes, she drew breath, finding the familiar question.
When am I?
But the answer was slow to come; the past that was, for her, hours old, held fast and would not easily be dislodged. Soul-crystal warmed her hands; familiar shadows, scattered with silver light, began to roll. Peace. Time.

Now?

402 AA. Espere.

She slipped the ball back into the safety of her robes. The otherwhen did not take her into horror without reason. Somehow, the wild girl, whose name she now knew was Espere, and yesterday's vision were linked, although any who lived at the time of the coliseum were less than dust.

The rings.

She had not been to Meralonne's study for well over ten years. She remembered their final argument clearly; the heat of their discussion still had the ability to burn old scars.
But I should have known better
, she thought sadly.
To come to a member of the Order and expect him to put aside all curiosity without an adequate explanation was a child's dream.
When she had stopped being a child, she didn't know, didn't remember. But she wasn't one now.

She knew where she was in the otherwhen, and knew that the argument had not yet taken place. But she also knew, now, why he had started to increase his
pressure and his curiosity; knew what had spurred him and piqued him too greatly.

She had.

She had never expected to be here; not like this. She put her hands in her pockets and felt the curve of the seer's ball as it pulsed against her palm. It was time. With an outward calm that she didn't feel, Evayne a'Nolan pressed her fingers against Meralonne's outer doors and whispered three distinct words. They crept open.

It was not her way to try to sneak, and indeed she knew that she would have no success—what had happened had happened—but she tried anyway. She always tried. Time—how could it be immutable, and she able to walk between the here and now of so many different lives?

But it was. And as she crossed the threshold, she saw the orange-white glimmer of Meralonne's spell as it flared to life along the seams of stone blocks and oak planks, seeking her identity, her mission, her reason for intrusion.

“Evayne,” she said, giving it what it sought. “I have come for the girl that I left here last eve. We have far to travel.” She saw the spell shiver as her words hit it, and she smiled in spite of herself. The years had given her knowledge and experience. She had learned to hone her sight so that it might be used without spell and focus. Meralonne had always said he was a mage of no small power.

At sixteen, she thought he was the most powerful wizard in Averalaan. At thirty, she believed him one of the more mediocre. At forty, she knew better than to guess—but she was aware that the spell of protection woven here had very few equals.

She took a chair—the old, orange leather that had seen the use of three previous members of the Order—and wedged her elbows and forearms along the winged rests. Her breath, she stilled. The otherwhen had never before taken her to him out of time; he was the one presence that had been steady—until their break.

He had nothing left to teach me
, she thought bitterly, hating the path, hating Time, and hating her father. She waited, counting seconds. Stared at the room, eyes lingering longest over the scattered mess of books and papers nestled in with the dirty clothing. Meralonne, although he would never admit it, must have come from a family of means to treat so much of value with such casual familiarity. At least, so she had always thought.

Did you have to bring me here today? Wasn't yesterday punishment enough?
But the path had no voice and no sentience that she could discern. It had never answered her, and she had raged, cried, and pleaded with it in her time.
Evayne. You are
not
a child. If you are here, it is for a reason; even a good one.
She reached into her robes and touched the seer's ball, pulled it, luminescent in the shadow-darkness, from her sleeves. She gazed into the silvered mists that she knew so well, and in but a few seconds, coaxed a distinct image.

The wild girl, indeed. She shook her head. Her life was a series of loose ends, things half-finished because the otherwhen took her from them in mid-stride. The wild girl, in this place, was one such thing. It was clear that they were to walk the same road today—an echo of the past. She shuddered, and took a breath to steady herself.
Think about yesterday tomorrow. Think about Meralonne today.

When the door to one side opened, she was ready for him. Or so she thought.

“Who are you?” It was his voice, and not his voice. She had heard him in many moods and in many tempers before, but this was new. She turned in surprise to find him quite alone; the girl was not at his side. She would have spoken, but silence came in the wake of surprise as she looked upon the man who had been her teacher.

Standing just inside the door's frame, he was taller than he had ever been. He wore his bed robes loosely about his body, but she could see the very threads crackling with energy, with magery. Some of it was the orange threads of protection and cancellation, some of it was the white of discernment, and some of it was a deep, steady violet, so calm she might once have missed it. His hair was white and very wild, as hers was dark and wild, and his eyes were the color of a sword blade, but less friendly.

“
Who are you?
” He did not lift a hand or utter a word, but she could see the colors ebb and flow around him as a spell took shape.

“I am Evayne,” she whispered, against her will. There was a command in his words that was almost bardic.

“So you've said,” he replied. “And you are telling the truth, as you believe it.” A little of the ice seemed to leave his eyes, but they were still hard, still keen. “But you are not the Evayne that I know, or that this room knows.”

“No,” she said, “I'm not.” She rose, pulling her robes more tightly to her body.

“Those are the same robes. That much, I can see.” He took another step into the room, and the door swung shut at his back. It surprised Evayne. He was not usually a man given to display, and the use of magic for the triviality of shutting a door was quite unlike the Meralonne that she knew. “Very well, Evayne,” and his voice was quiet. “Why have you come?”

“I have come,” she replied, as carefully neutral as she could be, “to take the girl that I left in your keeping.”

“I see. And where exactly would you take her?”

“I'm afraid that is not a concern of the Order, and it is best left so.”

“That,” he said, his voice so soft she almost missed the word, “is not for you to decide. You intrude here. You are the stranger.”

She started to speak when she saw his power flare again. It was quick; there was no hint of word-focus, no gesture, to presage the spell itself. Gray mage-light touched her cheeks, her chin, her eyes, as her hood was yanked back. She smiled grimly as the midnight-blue material struggled free of Meralonne's spell and settled around her face once again.

But he had seen enough.

“You are Evayne,” he whispered. “What's happened to you?” He took a step toward her, and she a step back, although she could not have said why.

“We do not have time,” she said. “Bring me the girl that I left in your care, and I will leave.”

“We don't have—” His eyes narrowed. He walked the length of the room to his desk and pulled his chair free from the debris that inhabited it. Then he sank back, his fingers a steeple before his eyes. “Your age is not the effect of spell.”

She said nothing.

He gestured; that single fact told her he used a greater magic. She needed to conserve her power. She let the rings of coruscating light spring up from the floor to the ceiling around her still body without raising a finger in her own defense. The circles flashed by so quickly it was impossible to discern their color, but she could guess what the spell conveyed to its caster. She knew that he wouldn't harm her.

When at last he finished, his eyes were slits, he was stiff, and his face, long and thin, had never looked so unusual. “You have great power,” he said at last. “And more. You have walked hidden ways, Evayne.”

“I walked,” she pointed out, “the hidden path to bring the girl to you.”

“You walked it,” he countered, “but it did not change you. You invoked it on High Summer. No, you've walked in the Winter, along the dark road. I can see the scars.”

She offered him no answer; he spoke the truth.

“What you've learned, I didn't teach you.”

“Experience is a good teacher, Meralonne—but in magery, indeed, you were my only master.”

“‘Were?'”

“Are.”

He smiled, but the expression was neither friendly nor pleasant. Not for the first time, Evayne wondered who he was, and who he had been before he joined the Order. She did not ask.

“You have learned to cross time. It is not an art I would have thought possible.”

“It is not an art,” she agreed. “It's an accident or a curse. Meralonne, you must know that if I could share this with you, I would. But in no wise am I able; indeed, I am compelled to do otherwise. I ask your forgiveness and your indulgence in this, but even if you do not grant it. . . .” She let the words trail off into uncomfortable silence.

“Yes?” He would not let the silence lie.

“What do you think I was going to say? Why do you seek to force my words?”

“Why are you afraid to give them?”

She lowered her chin.
Why, indeed? We will argue, and we will part. Nothing I say
or do can prevent it. It has happened.
“There is nothing you can do to take the information from me. If I have to, I will die to protect it.”

“I . . . see.”

“There are forces at work that even I do not understand. Meralonne—”

“You deny me this—this spell. And yet, you had not learned it, Evayne. Not . . . not yesterday.” His eyes changed color and shape. “I would give much to be able to travel time; to correct old wrongs and old crimes.” There was a hunger to the words. Evayne wondered if it had always been there, lurking behind the mercurial, peculiar man who had been her master, and would never be again.

I never came to you as an adult
, she thought,
until now. I do not even know who you are.
“I would as well, Master APhaniel of the Magi. I would give more than you could possibly imagine. But I do not choose where I walk, and I can change
nothing
of what has been.”

“I see.” He spun round on the chair, showing her his slender back. “And what if I do not choose to release this girl to you?”

“Then you doom us, for she is part of what we need to face the demon-kin. The darkness is coming, Meralonne, and whether we are at hand to fight it or merely to be trampled underfoot is our choice.”

“You ask me to make a choice without facts, without knowledge.”

“I ask you to make the same choice that I have had to. Do you think I know what will happen, or why, or how?”

“You know more than I.”

“Yes. But I have paid for that knowledge.”

“There is always a price to be paid for knowledge!” He wheeled, sudden in his rage; his face was transformed. Then he lifted his hands to his face and fell silent, kneading his forehead with his pointed fingers.

“Yes,” she said bitterly, although this blaze of anger was something that she had never seen from him. “There
is
always a price. But you would pay it, even knowing what that price was. I—” Bitter smile. She cast her gaze groundward, offering him silence.

“I am,” he said at last, “nothing if not a judge of character. Whether I was willing to pay your price or no, you would not give me the answers I seek.”

“No.”

“What, then, do you know of the demon-kin?”

“Too much, Meralonne, and I have not the time to tell you all. Suffice it to say that they hunt the girl that you keep, as we surmised years—no, yesterday.”

He did not blink as he met her eyes. “Evayne.”

She looked away. “I don't know,” she whispered. “I see glimpses, Meralonne, but never the whole picture. I see the facets, but not the gem; the trees, but not the forest.” It was as much a plea as she was willing to make. She turned. “The girl?”

“She comes.” He sank back into his seat, the fire gone from his gaze. “I know you well, Evayne a'Nolan. If you say it's important, it's important—that much I trust. But can you tell me where you go?”

“I'm not sure.” As a pupil, she had always been a child; even in their final argument, their break, she had been a willful, headstrong girl to him. Not now.

He raised a brow, and then shook his head. From out of his bed robes he pulled his pipe. He lit it, and only when he did did Evayne realize that the room was covered in shadows. Smoke wreathed his face like a halo gone awry. “You . . . don't know.” He smiled, but it was the veneer of an expression.

“Meralonne, I—” She drew her shoulders up and lifted her chin. “I am not a child any longer. We are equals, or we are nothing. My word that I will explain all will have to suffice.”