The God-Touched Man Page 18

“That she is alive, for one,” Piercy said, then thought back over Hodestis’s actual words: lain near death for years…I only care that she lives…never even looked my way…the artifact has the power to restore anyone, even from the grip of death itself. “He certainly said she was a far more powerful magician than he.”

  “And he was capable of destroying the velocitor,” Ayane said in Santerran.

  “Who was that?” Kerensa said.

  “A friend. And Hodestis—the magician—was extremely concerned we might stop him using the artifact to save his lady love.” Piercy chewed his lower lip in thought. “This is still not proof.”

  “I’ve never heard of this Witch,” Ayane said, “but Hodestis certainly didn’t want us to know Dalessa’s true identity. Why would he have done that if she were just some ordinary woman? I think that woman makes sense.”

  “What did she just say, Piercy?”

  “That your conclusions seem sound. I have to agree. At the very least, whatever Hodestis has in mind will no doubt be dangerous for everyone around him, even if this Dalessa is not the Witch.”

  “But how dangerous can one woman be?” Ayane said, switching to Dalanese. “Even a powerful magician?”

  “The Witch of Marhalindor created Nystrantor by draining the magic of a thousand magicians in one night,” Kerensa said. “She cured a city of plague and then burned it to the ground. A whole city. Sometimes she fought beside Alvor and sometimes she aided Murakot. She was the most powerful magician who ever lived, and she was totally insane. She’s dangerous.”

  “Kerensa, give—” The mirror swung again, and Evon looked back at Piercy through the mirror. “If you’re going to follow that man, at least contact Miss Tedoratis? I don’t really have time or inclination to keep answering their communications, wanting to know if you’ve spoken to me.” He turned his head to look in Kerensa’s direction. “Kerensa is…unwell—”

  “Childbirth is a natural thing, Evon,” came Kerensa’s voice. Evon flushed. Piercy cleared his throat in embarrassment.

  “I’ll…speak to you later, then,” he said, and Evon nodded. “Best of luck to you both.” The little circle went back to reflecting his own face that was, in fact, slightly pink. Sometimes Kerensa was a little too modern for his comfort. Possibly that was her country farm upbringing. He cleared his throat and huffed on the mirror again. “Eloqua Wilfreya Tedoratis,” he said.

  Nothing happened. “Come on,” Ayane said, tugging at his sleeve. “We don’t have much light left.”

  Piercy walked in the direction she led, keeping half his attention on his feet and the other half on the mirror. Behind him, he could sense Dolobeka’s burly presence like some kind of hulking elemental force, possibly the spirit of a boulder. He’d never met anyone as bull-headed and stubborn…all right, Evon was bull-headed and stubborn at times, but he wasn’t immune to logic and reason and, for that matter, the evidence of his senses. Dolobeka might become a problem soon, if he couldn’t be convinced of the truth of his situation.

  Though…even if he were convinced, what difference would it make? He would still be displaced, with no fortune or property, only a family who certainly would not expect an ancestor to show up on their doorstep looking for a home. Piercy impatiently dismissed his feelings of responsibility to the man. It was hardly Piercy’s fault Hodestis had dragged him into the past, or that Dolobeka had been caught up in the return trip.

  “Why is he coming with us?” Ayane said, jerking her chin at Dolobeka.

  “I intend to prove you both liars,” Dolobeka said, but it lacked the force of some of his earlier threats.

  “Oh, that will be exciting,” Ayane said. “Move along, then, and if you try anything on either of us, I’ll sharpen my knife on your spine.”

  “That is not an idle threat,” Piercy said. “She has left a trail of victims in our wake the likes of which has not been seen in a century.”

  Dolobeka scowled at them. “Do not mock me. She has done no such thing.”

  “I think our new friend needs to develop a sense of humor,” Piercy said to Ayane.

  Ayane flicked a dismissive glance in Dolobeka’s direction. “I think he might need to have one grafted in,” she said.

  The fog on the mirror’s surface cleared. “Faranter,” Tedoratis said. “Report.”

  “Ah—” Piercy cleared his throat, more to give himself time to order his thoughts than because there was anything wrong with it. “It would perhaps be faster if you tell me what it appears happened to me.”

  “It appeared you and Lady Sethemba walked into a wall of magic and didn’t emerge on the other side,” Tedoratis said, her voice tinged with sarcasm. “That was over a week ago. Tell me what happened or I’ll reach through this mirror and wring it out of your elegant neck. Not that you look all that elegant right now. Have you been sleeping on the ground?”

  “Among other things. I take it Ay—Lady Sethemba’s identity was revealed?”

  “You can imagine our distress when we thought the princess had disappeared—worse, that one of the Foreign Office’s agents had kidnapped her. The Santerran delegation took pity on us at least to the extent of revealing we were not looking for a princess, but the daughter of the greatest hero of Santerre’s resistance. I’m told Kinfe Sethemba had to be restrained from coming north to hunt you down and skin you alive.”

  Piercy stumbled and Ayane’s hand steadied him. He glanced at her; she was smiling. “I cannot express how grateful I am the coolest of heads prevailed in that situation. You know I did not kidnap Lady Sethemba.”

  “I know if Piercy Faranter disappears with a young lady, she no doubt went willingly,” Tedoratis said, and Ayane made a choking sound she stifled with her hand.

  “In fact, we were both kidnapped,” Piercy said, trying not to hear Ayane’s poorly concealed sounds of mirth. He summed up the events that led from their arrival in the past to Hodestis’s attack on them. “I cannot swear with complete certainty that Hodestis’s plan is to resurrect the Witch of Marhalindor,” he concluded, “but what I do know is that a magician of his caliber, one who has already shown he will do anything to achieve his goal, is no one I am comfortable allowing to roam freely.”

  Tedoratis narrowed her eyes in thought. “Is Lady Sethemba there?”

  “I am,” Ayane said as Piercy angled the mirror in her direction.

  “Princess Jendaya will be relieved to know you’re safe. You should return to Matra immediately. Mr. Faranter, this is now a job for Home Defense. You’re to escort Lady Sethemba back to the capital.”

  “Miss Tedoratis, we are the only ones in a position to—”

  “I’m not finished, Mr. Faranter. You’re to use your own discretion as to the route you take to Matra. You said you were well east of Rainoth…that’s rough country, and I’m sure you won’t be able to take the most direct path. Will you?”

  “…No, Miss Tedoratis, you’re correct. In fact, I anticipate this being a rather long journey, what with the need to provide Lady Sethemba with the comfort to which she is accustomed.” Ayane choked on a laugh again. “I assure you I will provide daily updates as to our progress.”

  “Princess Jendaya will insist on it. Good luck, Mr. Faranter.”

  Piercy tucked the now-silent mirror away inside his coat. “She is correct,” he said. “You should return to Matra. Hodestis is Dalanese; this is a matter for Dalanine’s government. Your princess would want you to rejoin the diplomatic party.” Saying the words made him feel hollow inside. It’s not as if you didn’t know this would happen, he told himself, willing the ache away.

  Ayane wasn’t laughing anymore. “It’s our fault Hodestis has the leash,” she said. “We planned the whole thing. By the Gods, Piercy, we stole the leash for him! He would never have succeeded except for us. I’m not going back to Matra until we’ve stopped him doing whatever it is he’s after. Besides, you can’t track him. If I leave, you’ll just wander out here until you starve to death. You ought to beg me to come with you.”
>
  The hollow feeling vanished. “Very well,” Piercy said. “I would appreciate it if you would accompany me on a quest to stop a monomaniacal magician intent on resurrecting the world’s most dangerous madwoman.”

  “That didn’t sound like begging.”

  “I thought it sounded very noble.”

  “It did. But it lacked a sense of urgency. You might as well have been asking me to pass the salt.”

  The last light of the sun cast Piercy’s shadow over Ayane’s shoulder and the back of her head, leaving her profile starkly outlined and her eyes, now twinkling with mirth again, golden-brown as if lit from within. “Please,” he said, “come with me.”

  She turned her luminous gaze on him. “I will,” she said after a moment’s pause. She was no longer teasing him, and Piercy found himself searching for something else to say, anything to keep those eyes fixed on him.

  “It grows dark, and there is no shelter anywhere,” Dolobeka said. “Do you propose we sleep on the ground?”

  “I can’t track him in the darkness,” Ayane said, suddenly irritable. “If we try to go on, I could lose the trail entirely. We’ll have to make do with what we can find.”

  What they could find was a small stand of trees without too many knobby roots whose wide-spread, gnarled branches grew low to the ground, protecting them from the slight breezes that became stronger as night fell. Piercy and Ayane had only the packs they were wearing when they went through the portal; Dolobeka had nothing but his clothing and his sword.

  They shared out what little food they had, which still left Piercy feeling as if his stomach wanted to gnaw its way out of his body through his navel, and settled in on the soft, springy heather to sleep. Dolobeka volunteered for the first watch and Piercy was too tired to fight him. If he kills me in my sleep, perhaps I can convince Cath not to let Hodestis take the Witch, he thought muzzily, and drifted off.

  He slept remarkably well, all things considered, and when Ayane woke him for his turn at watch he was thoroughly rested, if still very hungry. It was a clear, cool night that appeared colder by the moonlight that touched the moors, Cath’s half-lidded eye gazing down on them and, he hoped, choosing not to strike them down for stealing his property.

  Piercy paced around the perimeter of their “camp,” watching the stars traverse the cloudless sky, and let his mind drift with them. Hodestis had to know where they were—his map, and epiria, would let him track their progress more surely than Ayane could track his. He would know they were on his trail and he would definitely set magical traps for them, probably more fatal ones than desini cucurri. Why hadn’t he killed them when Dolobeka distracted them? They knew his secret, or most of it anyway, they were committed to stopping him…was it a sense that he owed them something for bringing him the leash, or was he just not capable of coldly taking human life?

  Either way, Piercy didn’t want to count on Hodestis’s continued sense of mercy. He’d have to pay close attention to their path, and make sure Ayane understood the danger. Or we could let Lord Dolobeka lead the way, he thought, but not with any real malice.

  He passed close to where Ayane lay, curled in on herself for warmth, not that the spring night was terribly cold. How many nights had she slept like this in the jungles of Santerre, hiding from the Despot’s troops? It occurred to him he really had no idea what her life was like, and that, unexpectedly, depressed him. They’d been thrown together by chance and Hodestis’s monomania, and they worked well together under those circumstances, but she was a Santerran noble and he was a Dalanese diplomat, and those lives were as different as chalk and cheese, something Kerensa always said that made no sense to Piercy, or hadn’t until now. They had some things in common, enough that they had become friends, but that was all, and the knowledge that Ayane would eventually return to Santerre made the night seem colder.

  He regarded her face, which in sleep lacked the animation that made her so beautiful, then walked away, feeling like an intruder for watching her while she was defenseless. Beautiful, and strong, and fiercely independent, and now he could laugh at himself for ever thinking he could win a woman like her with meaningless compliments. Suppose they were meaningful? he thought, and had to laugh at himself again. Give up the warm, confident beginnings of friendship for a superficial flirtation, even a sincere one? Ten years ago—five years ago, even—he would have pursued her, been satisfied with a week’s pleasure, maybe two. Now? No. He must be growing wiser with age.

  He watched until the sun touched the tops of the mountains, then prodded Ayane and Dolobeka awake. “We have no food left,” he said, “so I hope we find civilization soon.”

  “Hodestis didn’t even have a pack when he went through the portal,” Ayane said, “so he would have to stop somewhere to eat. I’m sure we’ll find something along his path.”

  Dawn turned the moorland pale green and violet, stippled in places with white flowers Piercy found himself avoiding. They were so delicate it seemed wrong to crush them. He breathed in the cool, moist air that smelled faintly of earth and tried not to think about breakfast, eggs and sausage and hot tea and…now he couldn’t stop thinking about it. They walked in silence for a few minutes, Ayane scanning the ground ahead, Piercy watching carefully for the slight shimmer that would indicate a magical trap, Dolobeka treading heavily behind them. “This…magician,” he said, “this Hodestis…what do you intend to do with him when you catch him?”

  “Restrain him for the authorities,” Piercy said. “Retrieve the leash.”

  “Why would a leash be so important? What animal does it tame?”

  “In the legends, it allowed Alvor to control the Dirn-Hound.”

  “I have never heard of this Alvor. Dalanese, no doubt.”

  “Yes, he is our greatest hero. But you have heard of Alvor, haven’t you, Ayane?”

  “I only know he had three companions, that one of them was a wolf, and that they killed the tyrant warlord Murakot about a thousand years ago. Alvor stories aren’t really part of Santerran heritage.”

  “Then you don’t know why the leash matters to Hodestis.”

  “Not really. Or who this Witch your friend spoke of is.”

  “Well,” Piercy began, “Alvor’s best friend Carall—”

  “Was he the wolf?”

  “There was no wolf. Wystylth was…I don’t remember what he was, except that he was a man with unusual capabilities. Then there was Dania—she was a powerful magician. And Carall, who was a warrior prince and Alvor’s best friend. Carall was killed in battle and Alvor descended into the Underworld to bring him back to life.”

  “Is that possible?” Ayane’s attention was still on the trail they were presumably following—Piercy had no idea what she saw in the soft ground and pale grass—but she sounded interested. Piercy hoped he wasn’t distracting her. “Hodestis seems to think it is.”

  “According to Kerensa Lorantis, who is the foremost authority on the subject, the story is both possible and true. Alvor had to gather several objects, though. A stick from Telwyth Forest, a giant hazelnut—I assure you I am not joking about that, however ridiculous it sounds—a magical ointment, the Dirn-Hound and its leash. The Dirn-Hound led him to the gates of the Underworld…it occurs to me to wonder how Hodestis means to find his way to the Witch.”

  “He does not have this Dirn-Hound?” Dolobeka said.

  “Possibly that is where he is going now, since he has the leash. Though I wonder about a creature that is still alive after a thousand years, whether that is even possible. But let me finish the story. The gates opened for the Dirn-Hound, onto a passageway thronged with spirits trying to distract Alvor. He blindfolded himself and used the stick to find his way to the antechamber. It seems the five doors to the Death-Lands are identical, and Alvor had to discover which one Carall had passed through, so he put the ointment on his eyelids and it revealed one door to be blacker than black, whatever that means.”

  “So which of Cath’s five hells did it lead to?”

&nb
sp; “The story doesn’t say, just that Alvor went through the door and found hundreds of spirits, all of which looked like Carall and claimed to be Carall. Now—strange.”

  “The whole story sounds strange, Piercy.”

  “I mean I have just remembered it was the very Witch of Marhalindor who told Alvor how to rescue Carall. A strange coincidence.”

  “You have not yet said who this Witch is, Lord Faranter.”

  “Mr. Faranter. I don’t know much about the lady, if lady she is, except that she was obsessed with magical power and in her quest to gain it created the greatest place of power, Nystrantor, and it drove her mad. But in her madness she could see things hidden to most, and she told Alvor to take what Carall hated and give it to him. So he…I realize this sounds ridiculous, but he threw the giant hazelnut into the midst of the spirits, who all dove on it—please do not laugh, Ayane, this is how the story goes.”

  “I’m just picturing these terrifying spirits fighting over a nut. You’re right, it is ridiculous. But go on, please.”

  “There’s not much more. Only one spirit did not attempt to partake, and that was the true Carall, because he could not eat hazelnuts. Then Alvor used the leash to bind Carall and led him out of the Underworld by the God Cath’s route, which was fraught with its own perils, and Carall lived again. Though he was much changed by the experience.”

  “Then this Hodestis must gather these things,” Dolobeka said.

  “Unless the leash was the last thing he needed,” Ayane said.

  “Let us hope—stop,” said Piercy, grabbing hold of Ayane’s shoulder. “There.” A shimmering veil of barely iridescent gauze hanging unsupported in the air quivered across the path. Out of the corner of his eye, Piercy saw a slim line of red, like a delicate strand of yarn, that became less visible against the ground the more directly he looked at it. “That is the sort of thing we must be on guard against.”

  “What does it do?”

  “I think I would prefer not to discover that by experiment. Let us wend our merry way around the thing, and watch carefully for others.”