When the Heavens Fall (26 page)

She became aware of something intruding upon her tranquility. A noise … Faint above the rustle of the trees, and the shouts of the lockkeepers working along Lepers Canal …
Crying.
A girl crying. The sound was coming from an open window in the wall to her left.
Ah, that explains it.
The new initiates' quarters.

Romany closed her eyes and tried to rediscover her serenity. The heat in the cloister was growing, and she mopped her brow with her sleeve, then took another sip of wine and spent a moment considering its provenance. The higher, east-facing slopes of the Koronos Hills without question. Two years old, if she had to guess. The more recent vintage was a touch more elegant …

It was no use. The girl's crying continued—soft, choked sobs. Not the weeping of someone seeking attention or pity. A private grief.
She is lost.
The child was not an orphan, then, for the urchins in Mercerie had been known to put out their own eyes for the opportunity to be taken in by the temple. The priestess sighed. As the memories of the girl's old life receded, her hurt would fade. Fade, but not disappear completely.
No, never that.

A scolding voice rang out, and the window to the initiates' quarters slammed shut.

Romany cradled her glass in her hands.

“I'm imprrressed, as ever, by your ascetic zeal, High Priestess,” said a familiar voice from behind her.

Romany scowled as the Spider stepped into view. Once again there had been not even a ripple along her web to warn her of the goddess's coming.
She is doing this to spite me.
“I would offer you some wine, my Lady, but sadly I have only one glass.”

“No matter.” A flutter of the Spider's restless fingers and a glass materialized in her left hand.

Romany paused just long enough to make her annoyance clear. Then she retrieved the wine bottle from the shade beneath her chair and poured for the goddess. Not a full glass of course, just the amount that propriety demanded. The Spider sniffed the wine before taking a cautious sip. “Not bad.”

“It
is
an acquired taste. If you wish, I can ask one of the acolytes to bring you something less challenging.”

The goddess raised an eyebrow. “
Less
challenging? Ah, you mean water. An excellent idea.” Her fingers flickered again, and the golden color faded from the liquid.

It was a moment before Romany could speak. “I had assumed it would be a while before I saw you again,” she managed at last.

“Assumed or hoped?”

“Well, since you disappeared last time without explanation…”

A casual wave of the goddess's free hand. “Something came up.”

Something always does.

Behind the Spider a priestess emerged from one of the doorways leading off the cloister. On seeing the goddess the woman dropped to her knees and touched her forehead to the ground. Romany looked away in disgust. Such an outrageous show of obsequiousness! Had the woman no shame?

The Spider had not even noticed. “I'm pleased to see you've been putting your time to good use, High Priestess,” she said. “I trust you are fully rrrested.”

Romany made no effort to cover her groan. “I am to return to the Forest of Sighs, then?”

“Of course. It's taken longer than I expected for Shroud to marshal his forces, but he's now assembled an impressive cast of players to take part in our game. Even as we speak, some are drawing near to the borders of the forest.” The Spider smiled. “If I didn't know better, I'd say Shroud's nose has been well and truly put out of joint by the loss of his knight. You will have your work cut out.”

Romany sniffed. The goddess was jesting, surely. Was a spider troubled by the flies that became entangled in its web? And yet … “I must confess, the thought of assisting Mayot Mencada in his struggles is an unpalatable one.”

“Tut-tut.
Mayot
is assisting
us
. The game is ours, not his.” The goddess's look hardened. “And I intend to see it through.”

“And if the mage profits from our endeavors?”

“What if he does? You forget, the more powerful Mayot becomes, the harder it will be for Shroud to wrest the Book from him.” The Spider sipped her water. “For now the mage needs our help.”

“For now?” Romany's tone betrayed her disdain. The old man would always need a crutch. Power was nothing without the intelligence to wield it judiciously.

“Don't make the mistake of underestimating him. I have in fact been pleasantly surprised by the mage's creativity. He's made a number of imaginative moves while you've been away.”

“Such as?”

The goddess gave a self-satisfied grin. “What, and spoil the surprise? You will see for yourself soon enough.”

Romany rolled her eyes. The Spider's reticence was infuriating, if all too familiar. “And if he tries to betray us again?”

“You'll just have to keep one step ahead of him. Of course, if you don't think you can handle him…”

“Handling him is the very last thing I would wish.”

“Oh, come now, where's your sense of adventure? It might even be fun.”

“Fun?” Clearly the goddess was suffering from the heat. “Will you be joining me, then, for the … entertainment?”

The Spider shook her head. “I rrrather think it is your turn to be entertained. While you've had your feet up, I've been busy in Arandas running rings round an opponent who might otherwise have proved a thorn in Mayot's side.” The goddess drained her glass. “I suspect Shroud will come to regret committing so much of his strength on this venture. In doing so he has stretched himself thin in other places, and I mean to take advantage, starting now.” A flutter of one hand and the Spider's glass disappeared. “It's time we were going.”

Romany's eyes widened.
Now?
“A few moments, please—”

But the world was already blurring around her. She made a grab for the bottle beneath her chair and smiled as her hand closed about the neck. Her feeling of triumph faded, however, when she noticed how low the level of liquid was.

I should never have offered the Spider that glass.

*   *   *

Luker's spirit drifted through the sky. Far below on the Gollothir Plains the wind blew red dust across the lowlands, smothering in a fiery haze the rocky gullies and spires of wind-blasted stone. He looked round. Nothing to see but the gnarled branches of rodanda trees protruding from the murk like skeletal hands. All in all, this hadn't been one of his better ideas. He could barely make out the Shroud-cursed ground, how was he supposed to locate whoever had spotted his party emerging from Cloud Pass?

As he banked to the left, his spirit was buffeted by swirling energies rising from the land. Not the wind, of course, since it couldn't touch him in his spirit-form, but rather the reverberations of some ancient cataclysm that had scarred the plains. The land's checkered history was written on those dark currents for those who had the skill to read them. Centuries ago a god had fallen here—Luker could sense echoes of its death throes on the updrafts—and the earth still shuddered at the memory. The Guardian's face twisted. Typical. Thousands of years dead, and the immortal still found a way to piss in his eye.

Switching his attention south, he floated toward the foothills of the Shield from which he and his companions had ridden a few bells earlier. Ahead firedrifters swooped and dived into the haze before reappearing with wriggling black shapes in their talons, but when Luker approached for a better look he saw only the corpse of an alamandra beneath a heaving mass of wither snakes. He blew out a breath. The higher he drifted, the less he could make out through the dust, but if he stayed close to the ground it would take him the best part of a day to make a single sweep of the lowlands.
I'm wasting my time here.

A final glance at the Shield's foothills, rising from the murk …

Luker stiffened. There was movement along a ridge to the west.

He covered the ground in a heartbeat. A group of riders was descending a rocky slope.
Kalanese.
They rode bareback on sand-colored mounts and wore gray robes and headscarves. Spears rested across their laps, and wicker shields hung from slings across their backs. The company was drawn up in an arrowhead formation, nineteen horsemen in all.

Nineteen, not eighteen.

That extra rider spelled trouble. Sure enough, at the head of the group rode a man with skin as dark as fellwood. His long blond hair was braided with gold thread, and across his thighs rested not a spear, but a staff of bone. Luker swore. A soulcaster. What in the Nine Hells was one of his kind doing this far east?

As Goldenlocks reached the foot of the slope he raised a fist, and the riders behind him halted. The warriors at the rear of the group moved inward, changing the company's formation from a “V” to a diamond. Spears were readied. The soulcaster didn't look up, but there could be no question he'd sensed Luker. What to do about him, though? Best guess, the Kalanese were ten leagues behind the Guardian's party, so more than half a day's travel. But still too close for comfort. Half a day's lead wouldn't see Luker clear of the plains.
Shroud's own luck the bastard's stumbled across our trail.
He gave a half smile.
His luck, not mine.

This ends here.

Luker battled down through the gusting updrafts until he was a score of paces above the riders. Goldenlocks barked a command, and all but one of his troops dug their heels into their mounts, scattering outward to form a circle with the soulcaster in the center. The remaining soldier, a woman, dropped her spear in the dust and moved up to flank him.
The sacrificial lamb.
Luker never ceased to be amazed at the lack of ceremony that accompanied what followed. The woman simply nodded to the soulcaster like she was acknowledging her name at a roll call, then slumped across her horse's neck.
Dead.

One less Kalanese. And Luker hadn't even needed to draw his sword.

Raising a Will-barrier beneath him, he braced himself for Goldenlocks's onslaught. This first round he would give to the Kalanese, for he wasn't going to waste his energy on an attack until he'd had a chance to judge the temper of the other man's steel.

He didn't have long to wait. A burst of energy from the soulcaster hammered into him, and he went spiraling upward, riding Goldenlocks's power like the cataclysmic updrafts. Higher and higher he went until the riders had diminished to blurs in the murk. Moments later they disappeared from sight entirely. Luker's Will-shield began to unravel, and he spun another layer of wards to reinforce it. Then that too started to come undone. A headache prickled behind his eyes. And still his enemy's sorcery continued to batter him.

Not bad, little man.

Finally the waves of Goldenlocks's power subsided, and Luker's ascent slowed. He took a faltering breath. Just as well he didn't mind heights, since he was now level with the lowest of the Shield's peaks. Far below, another of the soulcaster's kinsmen would doubtless be spurring his horse level with his leader's in case the Guardian came back for more, but Luker had no intention of provoking another broadside. He'd learned enough to know Goldenlocks was strong. Too strong to be taken down while Luker was in spirit-form and so far from his body. Tempting, perhaps, to stay a while and let the soulcaster use up more of his followers in keeping Luker at bay, but at what cost to the Guardian himself? No, better to beat a tactical retreat and conserve his strength until such time as he met Goldenlocks in the flesh. For when they did, Luker vowed, the result would be different.

Closing his spirit-eyes, he concentrated on his distant body. After a short while he felt the scorched ground beneath his fingertips, the wind's hot breath against his skin. His spirit sped across the intervening leagues.

When he opened his eyes he found Jenna staring down at him, her face framed by the powder-blue sky. To her left, Chamery watched with hooded eyes, a damp cloth pressed to his face.

Jenna smiled a crooked smile. “Welcome back.”

Raising himself on one elbow, Luker hawked and spat. “How long was I gone?”

“Half a bell,” Jenna said, passing him a water bottle.

Luker pulled out the stopper and took a swig.

Merin spoke from behind. “Well?”

“Kalanese are on our trail,” the Guardian said, looking round. “And they've got a soulcaster.”

The tyrin had been rubbing his horse down with a blanket, but now he paused. “You're certain they're following
us
?”

Luker nodded. If they weren't before, they sure as hell would be now. He rose and brushed dirt from his clothes. Taking a final swig from the flask, he handed it back to Jenna.

“What next, Guardian?” Chamery said.

“We keep going. Can't ambush a soulcaster. Too many in his party, anyhow.”

“Can we outrun them?”

Luker shrugged. “One way to find out.”

The mage's voice was dipped in acid. “Excellent. For a moment there I thought you had things under control.”

The Guardian stared at him.
Maybe I should cut the boy loose, see if he copes any better on his own.
Chamery removed the damp cloth from his face, and a drop of water dripped from the end of his nose. For the past few days he'd been using twice as much water as anyone else in the group, but when Luker tried to put a stop to it, Chamery simply started taking from his horse's ration instead. He swung his gaze to Merin. “We should move farther east, closer to the Waste. Less chance of us running into more unwanted company that way.”

The tyrin turned toward the desert and frowned at the bruised skyline. “I don't like the look of that dust storm.”

“You'll change your mind if we need it for cover.”