The Sacred Hunt Duology (91 page)

Yet as she approached, she saw the back of the kneeling young woman who rested with her forehead against the edge of the altar, and she knew that it was no ATerafin that robbed her of privacy: It was Jewel Markess. The dark, slightly wild hair of the younger woman was half-wrapped in a wide swath of twilled cloth, from which strands had escaped into the night breeze.

The girl was praying.

And how long, Amarais, has it been since you last prayed?
she thought ruefully.
Come. Join her.
She walked up to the flat, marbled dais with a light and silent step and came to stand beside the kneeling young woman.

Jewel looked up, opened her mouth in a silent o that reminded The Terafin
very much of the fish that summered in the garden, and then blushed. “T-Terafin,” she said.

“Jewel,” The Terafin replied, all annoyance vanished. “We have come here, no doubt, for the same reason—although I confess I'm surprised that you found the shrine so readily.”

Jewel said nothing, and in the lamp's light—which was brilliant and harsh compared to the light in the rest of the garden—The Terafin saw that the young woman's face was pale and shining with sweat. And the evening was cool.

“What troubles you, Jewel?”

Jewel shook her head slowly, and then once again assumed the prayer position, although she covered her face with her hands instead of holding them out, palms up, in supplication. Into the silence, she began to speak.

Perhaps it was because Jewel was tired and the hour late—The Terafin could not be certain—but she knew that Jewel had never spoken so freely in her presence.

“I don't know how you do it,” the young woman said softly, speaking through the cracks between her fingers. “I don't know how you can be responsible for so many people. I don't know how you can choose your Chosen. It's not their oath—I understand that—it's that they uphold it all. Torvan says they die. For you.”

“They die,” The Terafin replied remotely, “for
Terafin
.”

“They die for
you.”

And then The Terafin understood why Jewel had come. In some ways, although her own motivations were more complicated and far more political, she was often moved to the shrine for the same reason. “Jewel.”

“We don't even have the bodies. I mean, not that they'd've meant much in the twenty-fifth—but here, here where everything's decent and we've got anything we ever wanted—here, it matters.”

“Jewel, you cannot continue to think about the dead. Think about the living.”

“I do,” Jewel whispered and, if anything, her voice was more intense. “I think about them all the time. Because if I make a mistake, they might not be alive to regret it.” She ran her hands up her face, pushing her hair away from the edge of her eyes. It was unruly, that hair; much more so than The Terafin had initially feared its owner would be.

“Then if you ever desire rulership, remember this,” The Terafin replied. She softened her voice before she continued. “How do they haunt you?”

Jewel started and then slowly relaxed. “At night. It's always at night. I haven't had a single night's sleep in the last three weeks where I didn't see them. They're dead. They rise out of the ground, out of the stone—they reach for me and there's
nothing
in their eyes but death. They blame me.” She laughed a little shyly—or at least, to a less perceptive woman, it might have sounded shy.

But The Terafin heard the fear in it, the skittishness. And she remembered again that Jewel was seer-born, and her dreams and visions were not the same as those without talent—such as The Terafin herself—might endure. “Are your dreams usually significant?” she asked softly.

Jewel, pale and wan, swallowed and nodded. “If they happen all the time.” Lamplight flickered as a breeze too strong to be kept at bay played havoc with the wick of the burning lamp. “They aren't—they aren't the Wyrd,” she added. “They're different enough each time.”

The Terafin didn't need to ask the obvious question. “Raising the dead in such a fashion is an art long lost,” she said at last. She knew it for bitter consolation. Because she knew that first among the practitioners were those who called themselves the Allasakari. They were already involved to some extent; Devon said that of the two who had attempted the assassination of the foreigners, one had probably been a servant of the God whose name was never spoken aloud.

She began to bow her own head, and then she stopped. “Jewel, how long have you been coming to the shrine?”

“I don't know. A week, maybe a little more. Why?”

“Who taught you the customs of the Terafin shrine?”

“Torvan.”

“Oh?”

“He was on duty in the gardens the night—the first night—that I came here. He said I wasn't allowed to touch the altar unless I had something to offer the House. And I do,” she added, her voice tinged with defiance. “Myself and my service.”

“I see.” The Terafin nodded gravely. “And that, in the end, is all any one of us has to offer; no more, and no less. Come; if you take comfort from this, then join me. For I, too, have had my nightmares. This force that we are searching for—it is not the province of Terafin alone; I do not have the resources to combat the kin, wherever we may find them, and to uncover the source of their summoning.”

“But you're part of the Kings' council,” Jewel replied. “You have the ears of the Kings. You can go to them and tell them and they'll listen to you.”

“Yes.” The Terafin looked at her younger companion. “But it would be much as if you went to the magisterial guards when you had difficulties with your rivals in the twenty-fifth.”

Jewel snorted, and her eyes sparked as she tossed her head. “No—they'd never listen to me.”

“Then it's not the same. But there are similarities. The Ten are not like brothers and sisters; they do not serve the same House, or the same purpose, although they serve Essalieyan in their particular ways.

“Among The Ten, there is a hierarchy, an understood measure of power and influence. Terafin is a seat which holds power. And I will weaken Terafin in the
eyes of The Ten if I go to the Kings for aid, no matter how justified that request might be. Among The Ten are two who are our enemy, and close enough in rank to take advantage of any sign of weakness.

“But if I do not go to the Kings, there may be, in the end, a far greater price to pay than momentary political power. I don't know what form that price will take, but I believe that it has already started.” She bowed her head into the edge of perfectly smooth stone, closed her eyes, and began to pray.

Guide me
, she thought, her lips moving over the words as she held out her hands in supplication.
I am only Amarais. I am not the embodiment of Terafin.
The answer that she sought came, but as often happened in such a supplication, it was not the answer that she thought—or hoped—to receive.

Jewel cried out and fell back; The Terafin heard the young woman's hands hit the marbled stairs before she tumbled down them. She turned at once, the hypnotic and desperate stream of her silent prayer broken. “Jewel!”

Propping herself up on one elbow, Jewel rose. Her eyes were wide, her mouth round. “Don't do it,” she said softly. “Don't do it or they'll kill you.”

S
TEPHEN OF ELSETH
lay awake in the shallows of the night, thinking of sleep. It eluded him, and each time he pursued it, other images slid between day and night: Kallandras wearing a ring that could summon the wind itself, and Meralonne recognizing the ring for what it was in a voice that carried the hush before battle; the light, white and sharp and harsh, the heart of the element, unshadowing the hidden things in Kallandras' expression. Snatches of the lays that the bard had taunted the mage with came back to him in bits and pieces, each phrase dark and cold.

In Breodanir he could pride himself on his knowledge of things historical, but here, in Averalaan, it seemed that history lived, and in living, defied all explanation and understanding. He knew little, if anything, and felt that he understood less.

Kallandras was in the west sleeping room; he was asleep, or so Stephen thought by the sounds of the occasional sharp cry that sleep should have muffled. The healer had given him something to help him sleep, and after some argument—civil and polite, but quite steely—Kallandras had reluctantly agreed to its use. It was clear that in Averalaan the healers were used to being obeyed, no matter who they dealt with; Dantallon was unbending in his demand, and showed no hint of surrender. Connel and Singer now watched the sleeping bard with both curiosity and the vigilance that their master demanded.

Espere slept at the foot of Gilliam's bed, on the thick rugs that had been brought for the use of the dogs. Stephen wasn't certain that she would stay there, which meant that Gilliam would spend another sleepless night, walking the line between desire and self-loathing. It was a dark line, and his huntbrother did what he could to dull its edge without blurring it.

Stephen rose and reached for the odd bed-robes that Devon had provided; in the shadows they were soft and fine, and the richness of their colors, the detail of their embroidery, were no longer intimidating. The rooms were not dark; even during the cloudy nights here, they never became so. Light from the courtyard's many torches mingled with the glowing stones that Stephen had once thought so remarkable to keep the deepest of darkness at bay.

He could not sleep, and at last gave up trying. For light at night was rare in Breodanir, and the use of candles, while not forbidden, was seen as a luxury that set a poor example for those servants and villagers who were forced by circumstance to be much more restrained. Why not make use of it?

He was halfway out of his room when he remembered the book. He wavered on the threshold, the door hanging heavy against his shoulder, the smell of sea salt lightly tinging the air. It was not, after all, his book; he had meant to return it to Meralonne, but in the confusion, had forgotten.

Or had he? He was curious about it, and as Gilliam slept fitfully, he let curiosity have full reign. This book, small and obviously very old, was a book that a mage—and more important, a member of the Order of Knowledge—had found of interest enough to carry on his person. But when Stephen had gone through the effort of pointing out that he had dropped it, Master APhaniel had seemed unconcerned.

Still, it wasn't his business. It wasn't his book. And he remembered well the old stories about attempting to pry into the affairs of mages. He stepped out of the room. Turned. Stepped back in. There was light, there were no onerous Hunter duties, and there was something to read. They were a potent combination.

• • •

The book was old, and not well-kept; the blue-stained leather, once fine and soft, was now cracked and chipped with age; the back cover was creased to near-breaking and the pages—made of a substance that Stephen did not recognize to touch—were crumbled at the edges and brittle with time.

There was a title, but only two of what Stephen supposed to be several words were now readable, and they were pressed in a style that made them seem almost a different language. It wasn't, quite—but it was stiff and formal and often oddly phrased. Stephen grimaced; he had seen similar works before, and they always made his head ache with the effort of concentrating.

But they were almost always worth that effort.

The front cover, like an unlocked door, was turned; he saw the frontispiece of the book, pocked slightly and faded with time. But the words that the cover had lost, the page retained:
The ceremonies of Oathbynding, the various methodes and reasons for so doing, and the effects upon the Oathbounde.

Oathbound.

The air in the courtyard was chill, and the lights seemed somehow harsher. The scent of the lilies that floated above the carp in the long, oval ponds built into the rock of the grounds mingled with the scent of dust, of things so aged that the freshness of the turning time and season could no longer have an effect. He trembled, although he did not know why; there was an instant of fear, and of something buried beneath it, that stabbed him cleanly between the left ribs. His hand froze on the book's cover, but he knew, even as the intellectual part of his mind
considered, that the deed was done: The door was open, but it could not be closed again.

He turned the page.

Know it for truth, whosoever readeth this tome of slender weight, yet significance beyonde compare, that these are the words of Our Lord, who is above all Gods the most trustworthy; who demands above all things the honor of his followers, and the honor of their oaths, both to Him and to their compatriots. You who are His followers, follow not lightly, and undertake the Oathebynding with gravity and with the understanding of the consequences that the Oathebynding shall work.

Do not seek to coerce those who will not understand the full measure of the action they take and the words that they speak, for the Oathbynding is beloved of God, and once made, it cannot be broken, save at his will
—
and He does not countenance Oathbreakers, and his wrath is Great.

But if you have those who indeed wish to swear their Oath and have it witnessed, and take the sacrament, and be Bounde, realizing in full that which will befall them should they fail in their Oath and become Oathbreakers, then you must follow the path set by our Lord, Bredan of the Covenant in the Heavens, he whose powers keep even the Gods from warring.

Stephen stared at the name on the page as if it, alone of all the words so far, was written in a foreign language that defied his comprehension, and yet at the same time spoke to a part of him that existed without language, or before it, it was so deeply buried. Bredan of the Covenant. The formal address made it clear that this Bredan, this keeper of Covenants, was a God.

Except that there was no such God in Averalaan; none in Essalieyan. Only in Breodanir was there one whose name was close, and he was the keeper of no Covenants. Bredan. Breodan.

Surely, Stephen thought, as the words gathered and blurred, losing all meaning as words will if stared at and repeated long enough, the Order of Knowledge would have known, would have seen the similarities? Surely if this Bredan were somehow connected to Breodan of the Breodani, they would have made those connections? Maybe they did; they had sent members of the Order to study the Breodani for decades past—to somehow prove that the God was either a true one or a false one.

He had to speak with Meralonne APhaniel. He made to rise, but it was a feeble attempt; the book lay open in his lap beneath the rounded glow of the lamp that lit the small alcove in which he sat.

. . . 
and of the various effects on the Oathbounde, there is one of note: that the soul of the Oathtaker is Bounde in truth, and cannot be ensorcelled or otherwise trapped by the priest of another God, or the fell creatures that inhabit the Northern Wastes. Nor by the kin of the Darkness, nor again by the First-born who is called Calliastra, nor by . . .

His fingers felt as if they belonged to another man as they moved the pages,
turning them gently and dwelling on the surface of their words while shying away from the depths. He paused at last at the book's fourth and final section, titled simply,
Oathbreakers.

• • •

Gilliam woke in the darkness, tossed off the plenitude of fine, soft silks that hampered his movement, rolled across the floor, and grabbed his sword. Before he had come to a stop, he had slid into and out of the vision of six sets of eyes, spinning between them a web with which to capture a limited feel for the surroundings outside of his immediate senses.

Stephen was frightened, and he could feel that fear as viscerally as if it were his own body that contained it. Still, there was no obvious sign of attack.

As he got to his feet, he found Espere at the door; she was alert and watchful as she shouldered aside the hanging and waited for her master; no trace of sleep remained with her. Moonlight, or what he persisted in thinking of as moonlight, illuminated her face, her shoulders, her body. Still, he was barely tempted to touch her, although her scent, musky and familiar, drew him as it often did.

Shaking his head, he crept stealthily into the halls, using shadows for scant cover as he made his way to Stephen's rooms. He liked these halls and quarters because they were so sparsely decorated and furnished; there was nothing to trip over, nothing to worry about breaking. A long stretch of hall, punctuated at the end by a mirror and a squat, flat stool, lay before him.

The hunt shifted, or so it felt; he stopped moving, his hand against the smooth, cool walls. Stephen was not in his rooms. But where?

Espere whined softly.

“Not now,” he whispered, pushing her firmly to one side. “We need to find—” He stopped as Stephen's fear was swallowed by a silence deafening in its totality. His own fear replaced it. He pushed at the bond, forcing it as much as he had ever done. Something broke through the silence, like water rushing up between the cracks in the surface of a partly frozen lake.

Fear and fury; anger, pain, loss. Betrayal.

He cried out and stepped back. The dogs, all six of them, began to bark and howl in a frenzy; he heard and felt their acknowledgment of his momentary panic. They came, as if at his call, abandoning their posts and places.

Stephen was gone again.

• • •

Stephen, back pressed firmly into the wall, closed his eyes and did all that he could to pull back from the Hunter who was both his Lord and his brother. The book lay closed and flat between his shaking palms, as if it were part of an elaborate prayer.

He waited in silence until Gilliam and Espere entered the courtyard. Gilliam was dressed for sleep, and Espere was not dressed at all.

“Stephen?” The single word was intensity itself.

Stephen rose and bowed stiffly, sliding the book into his pouch as he did so. “Gil, don't ask,” he said, and the words were distant. They had to be. He lifted his head and met his brother's stare, and it was Gilliam who at last looked away. Gilliam, who had never been good at speaking about emotion.

“Where are you going?”

“To my room,” Stephen replied softly.

“And then?”

There was no point in lying. “To the Order of Knowledge.”

They both knew that the city contained almost as many people as the entire country of Breodanir; that their enemies, hidden by darkness, knew the city better than they, and that they were, in all probability, watched by those who waited for the opportune moment to strike. Knowing it, they did not put it into words; not now. There was no need. Stephen was going to the Order, and he intended to travel, if not alone, then without Gilliam of Elseth.

And it hurt them both, to know that, and to be forced to accept it.

Gilliam nodded stiffly, and Espere whined, crossing the courtyard suddenly and freezing ten feet away from where Stephen stood. She looked back at Gilliam and growled; her voice was low and angry. Gilliam's brow furrowed as she took a step forward, and then another; his cheeks flushed. But she was not a dog, and in the end, she came to stand before Stephen of Elseth.

Her eyes, as she met his, were a black-brown that seemed devoid of whites.

“Did you know this, wild one?” he whispered, as he cupped her cheek in the palm of one shaking hand. He could not ask more, not only because she would not answer, but because he could not control what came with it. And he was the huntbrother, he reminded himself bitterly; the responsibility of control was his.

Her eyes, dark, were still luminous; they glimmered with reflected light as they met his, unblinking. Stephen wondered if the tear that gathered, unshed, in the corner of her eye was a trick of light or a lack of blinking—or whether it was the only answer she was capable of giving him. He was moved, as he had not expected to be moved, and he lowered his hand gently.

“Take care of him,” he told her softly. “I will return.”

“Yes, you will. I give my word to Lord Elseth that I will see to your safe passage.”

They all turned to stare at Kallandras.

• • •

The streets were shadowed and empty. They reminded Stephen of Gilliam, of what he felt in Gilliam through the bond that they shared. And they reminded him, as well, of the life that he had led before Soredon of Elseth had called his city hunt so many years ago.

It had been a long time since he had hidden in the cover of shadows and
darkness, since he had walked the city streets with a very real desire to go undetected. As an eight-year-old boy, he had never been very good at it, but better a little experience than none.

And besides, these streets, so well appointed and so perfectly made, with their wide, stone roads, and their perfectly planted trees, their “Avenues” and their “Boulevards,” were nothing at all like the warrens in the lower city. He had left them behind, whether he willed it or no, fourteen years ago, and they would not come back to him now.

Kallandras was a good deal better at the silence of movement than Stephen thought he would ever be. Although he dressed like a bard, and still carried Salla—in a case that he strapped lightly and quickly to his back—he moved with a precision and a grace that was astonishing.