The Sacred Hunt Duology (67 page)

But as he walked over to the lamp, she sat up, throwing the covers off. Her eyes were violet holes.

“Do you want me to leave the light burning?”

She said nothing.

“Evayne?”

She still said nothing.

The fire logs cracked in the silence, and Stephen looked toward them, almost thankful for the interruption. It was then that he noticed the large, dark chair in the corner of the room. It was not a child's chair, but rather that of a parent; it had rails and one could rock in it, or sit in it, through the hours of the night.

He pulled it out of the corner and set it down beside her bed. “Sleep,” he told her, pushing her shoulders back toward the mattress. “Or rest. I will watch you. I will stay.”

She did not speak but did not resist him, and in the end he stroked her tearstained cheeks; she clutched at these evocations of her past as if by doing so she could make them real.

• • •

In the morning, she was changed.

The curtains were open, and the room, flooded with light, looked somehow different. Smaller, perhaps. A little less cozy.

She lay in bed, staring up at his face, her eyes wide and lively. Where she had been sixteen, he thought her now eighteen or even nineteen, and those two or three years made a difference. “I thought you'd never wake up,” she said, as she rose on an elbow.

“I thought,” he replied gravely, inclining his head, “that you would never sleep.”

She studied his face as if trying to absorb every line, every detail. And then, staring at the wall just left of his shoulder—the wall on which the hanging lay—she said, “I thought I never would either.” She rose and sat on the edge of the bed. “We're at the way station. It's 410 in the year of our Lady Veralaan. It's the month of Scarran, four days after the longest night.”

“Yes.”

“Are you hungry?”

It was an odd question, but he was, in fact, starving. “Yes.”

“Good. I think we can eat.”

• • •

This Evayne was so unlike the young girl that he'd seen the previous evening that he wondered if they were the same person. Wondered, rather, how the one could grow into the other. This woman was full of nervous energy; she was happy. She was not afraid to speak of her life, even if she gave no specific details, and she was not afraid to ask Stephen about his. They ate alone.

“And so you started to study magery?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “And with the grouchiest, touchiest, strangest of the mages at the Order.”

“Who is that?”

She turned it over and over before she looked straight into his eyes.
“Meralonne,” she replied, and seemed surprised that she could. “Meralonne APhaniel. He has his own conflict with the darkness, and I'll find out what it is one day.”

“And do you study history?”

Her face darkened for the first time, but she nodded again.

“Old history?”

“Some of it.”

“Pre-Weston history?”

“You've obviously done studying of your own. Yes.” She shook her head. “Most people would want to know about the magic, you know.”

“I do. I just want to know about the magic that's history. I've already seen enough that isn't for
this
lifetime.”

She laughed. He didn't.

“Have you been well?”

She looked at him oddly; the question hung in the air between them as if it were somehow unnatural. Then she smiled, but the smile was as strange as her stare had been. “I've been well. The last time I saw you was not the last time you saw me. You are such a strange man, Stephen, to be caught up in so much.”

“Strange? How?”

“You are so very normal; even your decency is normal and not of the variety that topples great evil. Of all the people I've met, I think I understand the why of you least.”

“The why of me?”

“Why I met you. Why I know you. I suppose,” she added, still speaking mostly to herself, “there's a good reason.”

“You mean besides the fact that the God of Darkness is trying to kill us?”

“Well,” she said, as surprised at the interruption as anyone would be who spent too much time alone with their thoughts, “I suppose there is that.” She frowned. “I think it's time for me to go. I really don't understand why I was allowed to come here at all.” She stood in one easy motion, taking to her feet as if she seldom sat at leisure.

He stood with her. “Evayne—”

“Thank you, Stephen. If I never say it again, thank you for everything.” She reached out hesitantly, and then stopped short of embracing him. They stood, awkward, and then Stephen caught her hand and kissed it lightly.

But he would remember this meeting, as he remembered all of his meetings with Evayne, old or young.

• • •

She came one last time before they once again took to the road. It was midday, and Stephen was alone in the great room; he was often alone, given who his companions were. Gilliam was out with the dogs—and Espere, who left his side less
often than any of the pack—and Zareth Kahn was in his study; if they met for even one common meal, it was unusual.

But he did not think of them when they were not present; he thought of the fire's warmth as it brushed against the soles of his feet; the softness of the blankets and the pillows that he rested against; the color of the rug beneath his feet that, hand-knotted, depicted the delivery of a great and urgent summons—at least, so Stephen guessed.

But he knew when she arrived because the sound of her weeping filled the room. He stood and turned at once; she was only two feet away. Her hood had fallen from her face, and her eyes were red and swollen, as were her lips; her skin was flushed, and the strands of hair that usually adorned her cheeks were matted and tangled.

She was not the very youngest of Evaynes; he thought that she was the same woman he had seen yesterday morning—but it was not the time to ask, if there ever was one.

“Evayne.”

She looked up, wide-eyed, and shook her head; open-mouthed, she took a step and then reached out to touch him. The touch itself was hard to bear; it was almost an act of desperation.

Think of her
, he told himself,
as a child. She's a child.
He pulled her into his arms, and without hesitation, she came.

“F-forgive me,” she said, between sobs.

“There's nothing to forgive,” he replied, kissing the top of her head. “Wherever and whenever you were, you aren't there now; you're here, and here is safe. Here is always safe.”

She cried, and he held her; he held her and she cried. Time seemed to stop around them, or else Stephen became unaware of it. The fire was at his back, and the room; there was no one else, for the moment, who needed his attention or his help.

At last her crying broke—but he thought it temporary, a lull in the storm, not storm's end. Still, he used the quiet to continue to speak of safety and shelter, until at last the words seemed to take root. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve—Stephen noticed that the sleeve seemed to absorb the moisture without showing it—and then pulled away. Her eyes were violet lightning; she was beyond being embarrassed.

From out of her sleeves, she pulled a rounded crystal ball. “Do you know what this is?”

He studied the luminous orb as if seeking answers within its murky depths. There was no surprise when they yielded nothing. “It's—it's a seer's ball.” The words were spoken in a hush.

“Yes. But do you know what a seer's ball
is
?”

He knew that the answer was no, but looked at the expression on her face, and shook his head, wordless.

“It's a part of the soul of the seer-born,” she said, holding it aloft. “It's that part made manifest by the First-born, once one has walked the path and made the choice.” Light came from the ball in sharp, bright lances, piercing her palms but causing no pain. “It's the sum of the path that the seer-born will walk in her life, seen as the Oracle alone can see it. This is
me.
This is what I've chosen to become.”

He waited, knowing that he was at the eye of the storm. Watched her, seeing in her youthful face a hint of the majesty and the mystery that she would wear in her prime.

“But it's also a part of my vision. It helps me to see clearly in the world that I walk; it strips away illusion, falsehood, and shadow when I bend my will to look through it.” She lowered it slowly until it was held in both of her hands, level with his heart.

“What would you have of me, Evayne?”

Her eyes were like open wounds, and he could not meet and hold them for long; they made him ache so profoundly he felt, briefly, that he had never known sorrow.

“You were right,” she said, her voice low and almost guttural. “This
is
safety—the only safe place and time. And I don't know if I'll ever return to it again. I want to keep it, Stephen of Elseth. I want to see it and remember it so well that nothing will take it from me. No matter what happens, I won't lose it.”

What has happened?
But he knew that he could not ask it, or that she wouldn't answer. Not with words. And he wasn't certain, anymore, if he wanted the answer. His hair stood on end as he lifted his right hand.

“What would you have me do?”

“Touch the crystal,” she replied. “That's all. Just touch the crystal.”

“That's all?”

“That's all.” But the two words made it sound like the last task of Morrel. He came within a hair's breadth of the ball's surface.

“What will it mean?”

She had the grace to swallow, if not to blush. “It means that I will see you as you are. It means that the crystal will have your image etched into it, and I will always be able to call it up.”

“What do you mean, see me as I am?”

She couldn't lie to him; he could see that, and also see that she wanted to. “If you permit it, I'll see the truth about you. How you feel about things. Who you are, and who you think you are. It'll be as if—as if there's a window from my soul to yours, and on such a window, there aren't any curtains.”

“You've done this before?”

“No. Never.”

Stephen wasn't certain that he wanted to be examined so closely by someone that he didn't really know. And he was certain that he didn't want her to know that he felt that way. He didn't want her to understand his relationship with Gilliam or his mother or his second mother or Cynthia; he didn't want her to know when he lied and when he was vain and when he was overweening in his pride. He didn't want her to know his fear or even to understand his hesitation.

“What if I'm not who you think I am?”

“Does it matter?” she countered, and he could see the storm returning to her eyes. “If you aren't who I think you are, you're still the person who comforted me the first time that I ever killed a man.”

His brows rose.

“You're still one of the only people who's just talked to
me
, as if
I
mattered, not as if I were just the sum of my powers and my choice. If you aren't who I think you are, what does it matter? I know what you've done, and I'll remember it no matter why you did it.”

“Why can't you just remember it the way anyone else would, and leave it at that?”

“Because I'm not anyone else.” She swallowed. “Because this way, you'll always be a—a living part of me.”

Does it matter?
he thought, as her tears started again.
Does it really matter?
He smiled, although the smile was a very weak one. “Don't cry, Evayne. I can't say no to tears.”

She cried harder, and the tears fell freely; she wouldn't lower the ball or put it aside to wipe them away. “I want to remember you as you
are.
I want to remember you as you. I don't remember my father well anymore. I don't remember Priestess Aralyn, although she was my closest friend when I was young. They're dead, and my memory isn't a good enough place for them to live.

“Please, Stephen.”

He did as she asked, although his hands were stiff and his touch very tentative. He thought he would feel a shock, some pain, some effect of magic, but there was only a pure, radiant light, and it grew brighter and stronger as it flared in an aurora around the ball she held. He shielded his eyes with his free hand, but as the light grew yet again, he was forced to close them.

And when he opened them, she was gone.

23rd Misteral, 1st Corvil, 410 A.A.

Essalieyan

O
NCE THEY WERE OUT
of the mountain passes and beyond the foothills, their journey finally became pleasant and even enjoyable. The dogs had not taken well to the pass, and therefore neither had Espere and Gilliam; when Gilliam was miserable or ill at ease, it affected Stephen. Zareth Kahn was the only cheerful member of the expedition, and at that, it was a forced cheer that did more harm than good until he, too, lapsed into the near sullen silence that was only alleviated by the appearances of Evayne.

She came from around odd corners in the pass, from behind cliffs or rocks, from little outcroppings above or small crevices below. She ignored the prevalent mood of the party, and if no one else was happy to see her, the wild girl was. When she was not so young and not so powerful, she would snort something about men under her breath, just out of Stephen's hearing. Gilliam's more acute hearing, unfortunately, picked out the sentiment and the words that framed it.

But the Hunter Lord's mood broke as soon as the paths through the foothills were well underway, and not even the chilly rain could dampen Stephen's spirit thereafter. He knew that the mountain ranges were past the halfway mark.

They had traveled hard for three weeks and more; the snow was gone from the grounds as the Northern lands gave way to the flatter, warmer South.

Evayne, old or young, wise or naive, happy or grim, often joined them in the morning and led them along the roads, although those roads were very hard to miss. They were stone, or so it seemed, but wide and flat and smooth. A wagon could traverse them easily with little stress to the wheels or the horses that pulled it.

Zareth Kahn explained that the roads had been constructed hundreds of years previous, by the edict of the Kings, at the direction and with the intervention of the maker-born, in return for which the merchants followed certain rules and paid a tithe in a timely fashion for use and upkeep of the route.

That Stephen was impressed didn't say very much—but Gilliam was, too, and it was hard to attract Gilliam's attention to anything that didn't involve the hunt.
“It won't take nearly as long as we thought,” Stephen said to Evayne. “Which means that Gilliam might still be Lord Elseth at the end of the journey.”

“You don't know,” she replied gravely, for she was older and more somber on that day, “how long your search in the city itself will be.”

“But didn't you say you knew houses of healing there?”

“Yes, and I even said that you had the money for it, if I recall correctly; it was years ago from my perspective.”

He nodded, used to this.

“I did not, however, say that the houses of healing were necessarily the cure that you seek for the wild one.”

• • •

“Averalaan is the heart of the Empire,” Evayne said quietly as she looked to the east. The sun was high, and the air warm; had they been in Breodanir, the snow would have barely broken. It was midday, and they had stopped to rest at a way station. Stephen marveled at it; it was designed for just such a stop, and not more, although in an emergency some shelter might be taken from it. He wondered at its upkeep, for it was obviously repaired on a semiregular basis, but Evayne seemed to take its existence as a given—and as she was familiar with the Empire of Essalieyan, and he was not, he did not question.

There was a pit for a fire, with benches beside it, and there was a lean-to made of wood in case of rain. There was a feeding box for the horses, although no oats or barley had been provided, and the river that ran twenty feet to the south moved quickly enough that not many insects gathered. The water was clear, and Gilliam and the dogs were at its bank sniffing around and testing their legs with the same ready impatience that the wild girl showed. She was covered—drenched—in clear water, and was mostly out of her shift. In the warm weather it was impossible to keep her clothed for a full day.

Zareth Kahn ate quietly and paid little attention to the food; he was absorbed by Evayne. Not her words, but rather her voice, her gestures, the way she carried herself when she walked, and even the way she sat.

Stephen was not so concerned. He knew that this woman was not the same woman who had led them on the Winter road; nor was she the girl who had come to him while he lay abed, recovering from that dark journey. She was in between; more confident and more powerful than he, but less grandiose, and therefore less mysterious, than Evayne the elder. She was also more friendly, and more at peace with herself. He found himself liking her very much.

“Do you know the history of Averalaan?”

Stephen shook his head. He had barely finished his lunch, and sat back against the rough-hewn wood to listen to her words.

“I know of it,” Zareth Kahn replied quietly. “But I would hear it again; the teller of the tale often puts more into it than mere history.”

She raised a brow into the shadow cast by the edge of her hood, and then nodded. “You know that unlike Breodanir, the Kingdom of Kallantir, or the Dominion of Annagar, Essalieyan is governed not by a single monarch, but by two kings?”

Stephen nodded; that much, and a little more, he did know. “They're the god-born kings, aren't they?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “They make their home on the Holy Isle in the High City. The Isle is sometimes called
Aramarelas.
An old Kallantir word that means ‘heart' or ‘spirit.'
Averalaan Aramarelas:
The heart and spirit born of Veralaan. It is from Queen Veralaan that the empire as we know it was born; because of her sacrifice, the blood wars and dominion of the eastern wizards was finally brought to an end.”

“Did you know Veralaan?”

“You mean, have I met her?” She smiled, and if the smile was a little grim, it was still genuine. She did not answer the question, however.

“The city is called Averalaan after the convention of the noble houses, but it is more than that; everyone in the city pays homage to her by living within it and abiding by the laws of the Twin Kings, for they are laws that wars were fought to uphold.

“I cannot tell you all of our history, but in these lands, long before they were the Empire of Essalieyan—which means Brightness in Kallantir—there was the Dark League, a consortium of priests and wizards who sought, and gained, control of these lands, and half of the lands to the south. You can imagine what ensued in the years to follow, but in the end, the Dark League fell.”

“Vexusa,” Stephen said softly to himself.

“You have studied,” she replied. “Yes. In the end, the dominion of the League was so profound, the god-born joined forces across the breadth of these lands, and came to Vexusa. There, with the power of their birthright, they leveled the city. But it cost them dearly. Do you know the Priests' price?”

“They perished,” Stephen said, “because they became conduits for power no more; when the power was gone, there was nothing but the body left. Or so the stories said.”

“There was less left than even that,” Evayne said, staring into the fire. She shook herself a moment, and continued. “But these lands, as well as much of the lands we will enter, were still held by the splinter groups that had once formed the backbone of the League. From out of this period came the Baronial Wars, in which wizards associated with the remnants of the older organization fought each other for supremacy. The Wars lasted centuries,” she added, and again her gaze was distant.

“One man—Haloran ABreton—stood out in the slaughter, and he managed to cobble the Baronial states together into a kingdom. His was a long reach, given
the time in which he lived, and his rule was not a kind one. But he did not trust the priests, and did not have the power of their support; rather, he played the churches against one another, and allowed the church of the Mother to flourish so long as the priests did not interfere with his soldiers or their work. Therefore, he did not have the power of the Dark League as it had once been.

“He had three sons and one daughter, by three wives. The first wife died in childbirth, and the second died at the hands of assassins, although whose, history still does not tell us. The third wife died in childbirth with a daughter. He had no use for a daughter at the time, and gave her over to the keeping of the Mother while he continued to consolidate his realm; at a later point in time, he would probably have used her to make alliance with political allies.

“But the sons who were to succeed him fell upon one another, and in the end, he had no heirs. He married again to preserve his dynasty, but that wife died childless, and the wife after her, in her pregnancy—both by the hands of assassins. It was, as I said, a bloody time. He held onto power until his death, and then the court which was left, rather than fall into a war which no Lord could easily afford, agreed that the crown should go to Veralaan, the daughter. They felt that, raised by the Mother, she would be a malleable child, and that the Lord who called her wife would rule. Each House with any hope of ruling set about her courtship, content that they might force her choice and win the lands that they had already struggled so long for.

“They were wrong, but not in the way that they envisioned. She was, indeed, almost a child—but she had traveled as a Priestess of the Mother, and she had seen the death dealt by her father and his minions. She had done what she could to heal the hurt to both land and spirit that he had caused, and she knew that should she choose any of the lords who offered her their allegiance, nothing would change.

“But she also knew that they would not accept her rule, for she did not have the power necessary to be anything more than a puppet. Puppets, unfortunately, did not live long enough to become anything else, and it was her guess that she would die shortly after her first child was born.

“Abdication was not an option, for she knew, as the Lords did, that a civil war would destroy the very fragile peace that existed throughout the land. So she did what she could to stall.

“Now at the time, the healer-born flocked to the banner of the Mother, and although the Priests and Priestesses of the Mother had agreed that they would not intervene in affairs of the state, no matter how unjust or brutal, they had their own rules to offer in return: that anyone of any House that raised hand against a Priest or Priestess of the Mother would never again be healed by her.

“So Veralaan was able to stall for some time, but she knew that the dictate of the Mother's church would not protect her—or her people—forever. A year
passed, and then another half-year; at the end of this time, the council displayed an unusual cooperation and gave her this message: that the time for games was over, and she must choose should she wish to survive. In desperation, she prayed to the Mother, and the Mother answered, calling her into the half-world, the place between the lands of the Gods and mortals.

“‘Dearest of daughters,' the Mother said softly, ‘why have you called me?'

“‘I need your aid,' was Veralaan's stark reply. ‘For I am rightful monarch of the kingdom that my father gained by war's art, but I shall not be so for long without help.'

“The Mother was angry, but in the way that mothers are.

“‘I cannot leave the throne without starting a war that will never end. And I cannot rule among these vultures, for if I did I would have to grow cold and warlike to earn their respect, or to plot their deaths. There must be another choice.'

“‘Stay thus,' was the Mother's reply. ‘Stay, and wait for my return.'”

“And the Mother left her troubled daughter in the mists of the half-world, and went to seek the aid of her sons, Reymaris and Cormaris. Reymaris and Cormaris conferred long, and at length asked the Mother's leave to accompany her back to Veralaan.

So did Veralaan first meet the two gods, and she saw in their faces all that she might have judged worthy, although the mists of the half-world obscured much.

“‘Let me leave my kingdom in your hands,' she said, ‘For you will guard and guide my people in a way that I yet cannot.'

“‘It is not so simple, daughter,' Cormaris replied, ‘and yet we might be of aid to you if you have the will for it.'

“‘What will is that?'

“‘Stay with us a while in the half-world, and you will come to understand. But you will have no company but ours, and while no time will pass in the world you have left behind, much time will pass here, and you will feel it all in isolation.' Thus spoke Cormaris, for he was the Lord of Wisdom, and he knew that mortals and immortals are, in the end, alien and unknowable to one another.

“‘So be it,' Veralaan replied.

“And when the Queen returned at last to the mortal world, she was much aged, and brought with her two young men; youths in seeming in every way but the burnished gold of their eyes. And one was born of Reymaris, the Lord of Justice, and he was Reymalyn the First. His brother, younger, was born of Cormaris, the Lord of Wisdom, and he was Cormalyn the First.

“Then the Queen went to the Holy Sister and bowed low, speaking as if she had been silent for decades. ‘Holiest one, I come to present these, my sons, to you.'

“The Priestess looked long at the two who stood proudly before her. ‘Ah, Veralaan, what have you done? For I see that these two are of the god-born.'

“‘Yes. God-born indeed, but they are of
my
blood as well. They will rule what
I cannot, and hold it in strength and justice. This is Reymalyn, justice-born, and this is Cormalyn, wisdom-born. Both are of the royal blood. They are the kings that will set this land aflame with all that it has sought to bury and defile.'”

Evayne fell silent as the last of the words died away.

“And?” Stephen said.

“And,” she replied, gaining her feet slowly, “I believe that it's time that we were on our way.”