Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (48 page)

They stood motionless in the sand-bottomed wadi, waiting. Even the
sparrows were silent. When the raven did not return, they exchanged a glance
and, in unspoken accord, collected their bags, untied the horses from the tree,
and set off again.

After breakfasting on spima washed down with niggardly sips of water,
Abramm forced himself to work his bruised shoulder, circling it round and
round, teeth gritted against the pain, until finally he could move it somewhat
freely again. Then there was nothing to do but ride and think. And today he
did not hurt so much that he could not think.

So much had happened in only two days he could hardly process it all,
couldn’t even remember it all clearly, the way it had whirled together.
Despair and hope, agony and ecstasy, fulfillment and loss-his soul felt as
bruised and battered as his body. It seemed like a nightmare. Hardly real.
Hardly anything that could really have happened. That he should have survived the Broho, that he should be out here, free at last, riding toward whatever destiny held for him with the Dorsaddi. That she had loved him.

That above all else … she had loved him. The realization sparked a sense
of wonder that was transmuted almost instantly to the gall of terrible loss.
His throat constricted, his eyes teared up, and once again he found himself
teetering at the edge of an emotional abyss. Then the wave of grief passed,
and he regained himself, finding solace and distraction in a rising bitterness
that eventually erupted into words.

“You ever been in love, Trap?”

He saw Meridon glance his way, though he kept his own gaze fixed upon
the road. The Terstan’s reply came slowly, reluctantly. “I have, my lord.”

“Two years I loved her, longed for her. Finally I learn she shares my
feelings, only to lose her before a day has even passed. Tell me … where is the good in that? Where is the benefit?”

Again Meridon was slow to answer. When it came, his voice was quiet.
“She is with Eidon, Abramm. Her tears and pain replaced by perfect joy.
Would you really want to call her back?”

Abramm’s nape hairs stood up. Those words so closely echoed what he’d
heard in that cliffside tunnel, he wondered briefly if he hadn’t hallucinated
after all. Maybe Trap had been the man he’d seen and heard. Perhaps somehow the power he’d used—

No. He remembered clearly that Trap had fallen unconscious by then,
overwhelmed by the veren’s poison. Trap hadn’t even known Shettai was
dead until later. It had been a hallucination.

But part of him wanted to believe those words so badly. So very badly.
“She is with Eidon … a place of perfect joy.”

He remembered the dream, the beautiful light, the singing, the way she
had laughed and talked, the joy, warm and rich in her voice. Call her back
from that?

“No,” he whispered. Not if that were truly where she was.

As for you,” Trap went on, “well … you remain alive to choose.”

Abramm flinched, the chills reaching now to the core of his being. `And
you, Abramm, son of Meren, remain alive to choose.” Exactly what that mysterious man had said to him. Exactly.

But it was a hallucination. And this … this was merely coincidence.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” he said sharply. “Confuse me. Play on
my grief. Well, it won’t work, so you may as well give it up.”

Trap gave a weary sigh. “Do you truly believe I’m evil, Abramm?”

“Evil can masquerade as good. Moroq himself assumes the guise of a servant of Light when it suits him.”

`And you think I am a servant of Moroq.”

“I … I only know there was a time I was sure Saeral was good and true,
and I was wrong. And all my life I’ve been warned how your kind deceive the
unwary, twist the truth, cast your spells of coercion.”

Trap looked pained. “So you think I’m trying to enspell you, then? After
all this time, all we’ve been through? You really think I would do that, even
if I could?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know how to know.” Abramm realized he was fingering the stone on his chest again and stopped. “If I can’t trust what I see
and hear and feel-“

“Then you go to the Words.”

“The Words? The Words condemn you.”

“Do they? Where?”

“Everywhere. The Words say Eidon is the perfect Light of Life. Righteous
and holy, with no darkness in him at all. He’s not going to let just anyone
walk up and shake his hand. We must be cleansed, purified before-“

`And just how are we to do this?” Trap cut in. “You think soap and water
will take care of it? Or throwing wooden sticks on a fire, or spending eight
years adhering to a convoluted system of ordinances and restrictions? The
Words say we’re tainted, Abramm. Us and everything we do Shadow cannot
wipe away shadow?”

Abramm stared at him, startled by the passion in his voice. It was the first
time Trap had ever spoken of this subject in any way but with cool, guarded
objectivity.

The Terstan frowned, then turned his attention to the road, winding
through the barren hills ahead of them. After a moment he spoke again, more
carefully. “Why do you think Tersius had to die?”

“To make the Flames, of course.”

“The Flames are a lie, created by the very darkness they claim to ward.
But you’re right about Eidon being perfect and that He can’t ignore our failings. There is a price to be paid. It’s just that Tersius is the only one who
could pay it.”

He fell silent, leaving Abramm to wrestle with his claims, which were all
wrong-if only Abramm could find the words to explain it.

“So you’re saying,” he said finally, that the most evil, vicious man in the
world-Beltha’adi himself-could touch that stone and, if he wanted it, he’d
be marked like all the rest of you? Carry the power of Eidon within him, as
you claim to?”

” And Eidon said, I will grant you my light.’”

“Grant you so long as you’ve fulfilled the requirements.”

“It doesn’t say that. How about Amicus, midsector, line 40-`My Light is
freely given. Whoever receives it will be my heirs’? Or the Illumination of St.
Elspeth-‘The light of Eidon is a gift to any who will receive it’? Or Salasan
1:20-By his mercy we are made whole, not by our own deeds’?”

Abramm frowned. “You’re taking all those out of context. If we had the
books here, I could show you where you’re wrong.”

A pity we don’t have the books, then,” Trap said, turning his gaze back
to the road.

“What you’re saying can’t be right. It’s … it just makes it all too easy.”

“Yes. It does.”

“Well, that’s not right. It’s not supposed to be-” A cold aura washed
around him from behind, stopping his words as it stopped his horse, the
mare’s head coming up with a snort, her eyes rolling in alarm. Beside him
Trap fought to control his own mount, the creature sidestepping, prancing,
backing round into Abramm’s horse. A brief, rhythmic hiss of wingbeats
stirred the air and rustled the ratweed while the horses snorted and Abramm
pulled the mare’s nose almost to her neck to keep her from bolting. Part of
him wanted to let her run, even as he knew they would never escape.

But the coldness faded without incident, the horses’ frenzy waning with
it, leaving them sweat-drenched and blowing as if from a hard run. The men
on their backs exchanged a grim glance-the veren had found them and
flown on by. Which could only mean it had more important tasks elsewhere.

Like aiding in the assault on the SaHal.

If Beltha’adi destroyed the Dorsaddi, the Deliverer would have no one to
deliver.

They rode the rest of the day in silence, reaching another way station by
midafternoon. This one was truly deserted, its spring long dried up. They
passed it by without a word and stopped for the night leagues later.

Trap offered to take the first watch, and Abramm was weary enough that
he did not argue. Not long after they had settled, however, he was jolted
awake by the sight of Trap’s right hand glowing eerily with the white light of
his Terstan power, his grizzled face washed with its luminance. His eyes were
closed, his features still with concentration, and for a moment the glow
spread out from his hand, forming a saucer shape roughly the diameter of his
forearm. Then it vanished, and Trap sighed as if he were disappointed.

“What are you doing?” Abramm asked, half suspecting him of trying some
sort of persuasive demonstration to follow up their earlier conversation.

Some of us are able to fashion a shield with the light,” Meridon
explained. “I thought it might come in handy if I could learn how.”

Abramm couldn’t begrudge him for trying. If they were attacked, they’d
need all the help they could get. Abramm just didn’t think they would be. At
least, not by the veren.

They crossed the upper reaches of the Eranay Valley the next day. The
road cut through the rumpled foothills of a great mountain whose dark slopes
rose into the mist on their right. After centuries of drought, the river was dry,
just another steep-walled channel cut into the gray-and-brown hills. An easy crossing today, but in a few more weeks it would be a raging torrent, rushing
toward the vast network of cisterns and reservoirs waiting to be replenished
downstream.

Beyond the river the road deteriorated further, its crumbling pavement
often buried under sand or thick, dead grass. It was in such bad shape they
worried they’d lost the route, until finally they crested a ridge and found the
barren hillocks tumbling down to the lip of a vast, geologic cauldron, boiling
with mist. A thin ribbon of road looped and twisted between them and the
ruin of Sedouhn, crumbling at the cauldron’s edge, the last of the Dorsaddi
cities to fall.

They reached the city by midmorning and discovered that it supported its
own complement of poverty-stricken settlers, carving out their living along its
fringes. A small orchard, the pathetic patches of dead cornstalks and squash,
the rock cairns with their onion wreaths and tattered prayer flags-all gave
evidence of occupation, though they saw no one.

They rode through the slag-edged hole that was once the main gate and
along an avenue of gutted buildings. Dark lines scored the pavement and
ground amid deep blast pits. Arrowheads and weathered shafts by the hundreds lay in the sparse grass alongside rusting pieces of armor and decomposing bones.

The city spring, once delivered in an elegant, stone-walled pool, now bubbled up around broken and fallen blocks. Still, it was the most vigorous wellspring they’d yet encountered, and they filled all their bags, noting as they did
the roil of tracks left in the drifted sand by the soldiers who had preceded
them. Riding on, they passed through the inner wall, whose throne-wood
gates had also felt the explosive powers of Broho magic. From there it was a
straight shot to the final gates, which guarded egress into the SaHal itself.
Remarkably intact, they stood at the end of a grisly gauntlet of throne-wood
poles bearing the tattered skeletons of long-dead criminals.

All except the last four.

These sported fresh corpses, one pair mere hours dead. Though the four
wore Dorsaddi robes, all were northerners-two blonds and two redheads.
Their eyes had been put out, their hands cut off, their throats slit-but it was
the red-fletched arrows protruding from their chests that had killed them.

Abramm was not aware of pulling his horse to a halt, but somehow he
found himself stopped at the last post, staring up at the dead man’s face. From the Dorsaddi perspective, it must look a good deal like his own.

Apparently Sheleft’Ai did not make a way for them,” Trap said.

Abramm let out a long, low breath. They had known the Dorsaddi killed
intruders, but seeing it in the flesh was more unnerving than he expected.

At least we don’t look as obviously northern as these fellows,” Trap said.
“I’ll wager neither of the blonds had your eyes, either.”

Abramm snorted. “You really think they’ll let us get close enough to see
my eyes?”

‘At least we know they’re still fighting.”