The Briar King (29 page)

In the distance, he heard the horn again, and cursed as the witchlights that hovered around them suddenly flew up, like a colored fountain. They shot up toward the cave roof, then dropped like angry bees back toward Aspar and Winna.

Aspar didn't say anything. He didn't have to; Winna understood what had just happened.

“Down,” she said.

Hoof-clacks on cobbles greeted them as they came onto the street, though Aspar couldn't ascertain exactly where they were coming from. The vast hollow of the cavern and the close walls of the city played sling-stones with noise. He and Winna ducked in and out of alleys more or less at random. Aspar's feet seemed very distant from him, and he began to
wonder if the spear might have been poisoned. Surely he hadn't lost
that
much blood.

“Which way?” Winna whispered, as they came to a cross intersection. A post in the center of it bore a carved head with four faces, all with bulging, fishlike eyes.

“Grim!” he muttered. “You choose.”

“Aspar, how badly are you hurt?”

“I don't know. Choose a direction.” The witchlights had left them again, and they had only the sphere to show the way.

She chose, and chose again. Aspar seemed to lose track of things for a moment, and the next he knew he was lying flat on the cobbles. If he raised his head a little, he could see the ragged edges of Winna's skirt, and he heard the lapping of water. He was lying at the edge of the canal.

Their witchlights were back.

“… up, you damned fool,” Winna was saying. Her voice sounded more than a little panicked.

He helped her wrestle him to a sitting position.

“You're going to have to go without me, Winn,” he managed.

“Egg in a snake's den chance of that,” Winna said.

“Do it for me. They'll find us, and soon. I can't have Fend—I can't have him kill another—” He stopped, and gripped her arm, as something big stepped from the alley. “Turn your head,” Aspar gasped. “Don't look at it.” He drew out his ax, holding up the flat for a dull mirror. It was spattered in gore, however, and all he could see was the faint yellow glow.

But the greffyn was there, at the end of the alley, bigger than a horse. He could feel the sick light of it against his face.

“The greffyn?” she asked, voice quaking. She'd done as he told her, thank Grim, and was averting her eyes.

“Yah. Into the canal with you. Don't look back.”

“Into the canal with
both
of you. Or my boat, if you prefer.” The voice was throaty, hoarse even, as from speaking too much or not enough. Aspar peered into the darkness and barely discerned a cowled figure in a slender gondola, just against the edge of the canal.

Then he found he didn't have much to say about it. Winna,
grunting, rolled him from the canal edge over into the boat, then followed him in.

As the gondola began to move, a sort of burring sound, beginning below the edge of hearing and rising to sudden, intolerable shrillness exploded behind them, and Aspar felt his stomach heave.

Winna began to sob, then choke, then she vomited into the water.

They passed beneath an arch Aspar thought was a bridge, but it just went on, and on, a hole within a hole, the entrance to hell, probably, to the realm of dust and lead. But Winna's hand found his, and he didn't care, and yet another sort of nightfall took him away.

He awoke to the familiar scent of spider lily tea and oven-stone, to fingers on his face, and a dull fever in his chest. He tried to push his eyelids open, but they wouldn't move. They felt as if they had been sewn shut.

“He will be well,” a voice said. It was the same throaty old voice from the boat.

“He's strong,” Winna's voice replied.

“So are you.”

“Who are you?” Aspar rasped.

“Ah. Hello, foundling. My name—I don't remember my real name. Just call me—call me Mother Gastya.”

“Mother Gastya. Why did you save us?”

A long silence. Then a cough. “I don't know. I think I have something to tell you. I'm forgetting, you see.”

“Forgetting what?”

“Everything.”

“Do you remember where everyone went? The Sefry from the city?”

“They went away,” Mother Gastya grated. “Of course they went away. Only I remained.”

“But the men chasing us were Sefry,” Winna said.

“Not of these houses. I do not know them. And they came with the sedhmhar. They came to kill me.”

“Sedhmhar. The greffyn?”

“As you call it.”

“What is it, Gastya?” Aspar asked. “The greffyn?”

“It is the forest dreaming of death. The shocked gaze be fore the eyes roll up. The maggot wriggling from the wound.”

“What does that mean?” Winna asked.

Irritation finally gave Aspar the strength to open his eyes, though they were ponderous as iron valves.

He was in a small cavern or room, roughly furnished. By witchlight he made out Winna's face, lovely and young. Facing her was the most ancient Sefry Aspar had ever seen. She made Mother Cilth seem a child.

“Sefry can't talk straight, Winna,” Aspar grunted. “Even when they want to. They lie so much and so often, it just isn't possible for them.”

“You find the strength to insult me,” the old woman said. Her silvery-blue gaze fastened on him, and he felt a vague shock at the contact. Her face was beyond reading; it looked as if it had been flayed, cured, and placed back on her skull. A mask. “That's good.”

“Where are we?”

“In the ancient Hisli shrine. The outcasts will not find us here, at least not for a while.”

“How confident you make me feel,” Aspar said.

“She saved our lives, Aspar,” Winna reminded him.

“That remains to be seen,” Aspar grunted. “How bad'm I hurt?”

“The chest wound is not deep,” Gastya replied. “But it was poisoned with the smell of the sedhmhari.”

“Then I shall die.”

“No. Not today. The poison has been drawn out. You will live, and your hatred with you.” She cocked her head. “Your hatred. Such a waste. Jesperedh did her best.”

“How do you … Have we met?”

“I was born here in Rewn Aluth. I've never left it.”

“And I've never been here before. So how did you know?”

“I know Jesperedh. Jesperedh knows you.”

“Jesp is dead.”

The ancient woman blinked and smiled, then lifted her shoulders in a polite shrug. “As you wish. But as for your hatred— caring for humans is no easy task, you know. In most clans it is forbidden. Jesperedh might have left you to die.”

“She might have,” Aspar said. “I'm grateful to her. Just not to the rest of you.”

“Fair enough,” Gastya allowed.

“Why did the other Sefry leave Rewn Aluth?”

Mother Gastya clucked her tongue disapprovingly. “You
know
,” she said. “The Briar King awakes, and the sedhmhar roams. Our ancient places are no longer safe. We knew they would not be, when the time came. We made our plans. All of the great rewns of the forest stand empty, now.”

“But
why
? Surely all of you together could defeat the greffyn.”

“Hmm? Perhaps. But the greffyn is only a harbinger. Sword and spear and shinecraft will never defeat what follows. When the water rises, we do not wait for the flood, we Sefry. Our boats have long been built.”

“But the greffyn can be killed,” Aspar persisted.

“Possibly. What of it?”

“Give me a straight answer, damn you. Mother Cilth wanted me to do something. What is it?”

“I …” She paused. “I'm remembering, yes. She wanted you to find me. To find me, and the Briar King. Beyond that, I do not know.”

“And the greffyn will lead me to the Briar King?”

“It would be better if you reached him before the greffyn does,” Mother Gastya murmured.

“Why? And how will I do that?”

“As to the first, it's just a tingle in my mind. As to the second—follow the Slaghish into the Mountains of the Hare, always taking the southern and westernmost forks. Between that headwater and the Cockspurs is a high valley.”

“No, there isn't,” Aspar said. “I've been there.”

“There is.”

“Sceat.”

The crone shook her head. “There always has been, but behind
a wall, of sorts. A breach has formed in it. Follow the valley down, through the thorn hollows. You'll find him there.”

“There is no such valley,” Aspar said stubbornly. “You can't hide such a thing. But suppose there was. Suppose pigs are rutting geese, and everything you say is true. Supposing all of that—why should I do what Mother Cilth wants me to accomplish? What good will it do?”

Mother Gastya's eyes seemed to shiver like distant lightning. “Because then you will
believe
, Aspar White. Only seeing him will do that. And to do what you must, you must first believe, in the deepest cistern of your blood.”

Aspar rubbed his forehead with his hand. “I hate Sefry,” he murmured. “I hate you all. Why me? Why do
I
have to do this?”

She shrugged. “You see with eyes both Sefry and Human.”

“Why should that make a difference?”

“It will make a difference.
Human breath he shall draw, and Human soul charge him; but his gaze shall have Sefry quick and see the colors of night.
So the prophecy goes.”

“Prophecy? Grim damn you, I—” He stopped short at the echo of a voice. “What's that?”

“The outcasts. They're coming for you.”

“I thought you said they couldn't find us.”

“No. I said they would, at the proper time. That time is near. But they will not find you. Only me. Take my boat, and let the current carry you downstream. In time, you will see light, and steer toward it.”

“Why can't you go?”

“The light will end me, and there are things I must do first.”

“Fend will kill you.”

Gastya croaked softly at that and placed her hand briefly on Aspar's. With a terrible chill, he neither saw nor felt flesh on her fingers, only cold, gray bone. “Go on,” Mother Gastya said. “But take this.” The bones of her hand opened and dropped a small, waxy sphere into his palm. “This draws the poison
out. You may not be well yet. If you sicken again, clutch it to the wound.”

Aspar took the sphere, staring at the hand. “Come on, Winna,” he murmured.

“Y-yes.”

“The boat is there,” Gastya said, lifting her chin to point. “Do not dally. Find him.”

Aspar didn't answer. A shiver kept scurrying up and down his back like a mouse in a pipe. He was afraid his voice would quiver if he spoke. He took Winna's hand, and they went to find the boat.

But once the water had taken the gondola past the carved stone posts that marked the Hisli shrine, and into a low-roofed tunnel, away from Mother Gastya and her hollow, pitted voice, Winna squeezed his fingers.

“Was she, Aspar? Was she dead?”

“I don't know,” he murmured. “The Sefry claim—they say their shinecrafting can do such things. I've never believed it. Never.”

“But you do now.”

“It could have been a glamour. Probably it was a glamour.”

A long time later, it seemed, strange sounds came down the tunnel. It might have been screams, but whose Aspar could not say.

CHAPTER SEVEN
PLANS FOR AN OUTING

“MAJESTY!” THE GUARD PROTESTED. “You cannot— I mean, it's—”

Muriele glared up at the tall, weak-chinned fellow. He had a carefully trimmed mustache and was immaculate in the pale-and-blue livery of the house Gramme. Muriele couldn't remember his name, nor did she really try.

“Cannot
what
?” she snapped. “Am I your queen or not?”

The man flinched, bowed, and bowed again, as he had been doing from their first encounter. “Yes, Majesty, of course, but—”

“And is not the lady Gramme my subject, and a guest in my husband's house?”

“Yes, Majesty, quite, but—”

“But what? These are my rooms, sir, despite that your mistress lives in them. Out of my way, that I may enter. Unless you know some reason I should not.”

“Please, Majesty. The widow Gramme is … entertaining.”

“Entertaining? Surely she would have to be entertaining the king himself, if you are to put aside my wishes. Are you, sir, prepared to tell me that the lady Gramme is entertaining my husband?”

For a long moment, the young knight stood there, trying out various movements of his lips but never quite making a sound. He looked from Muriele, to Erren, to the young knight Neil MeqVren, who stood with hand on the hilt of his weapon. Then he sighed. “No, Majesty.
I
am not prepared to tell you that.”

“Very well, then. Open that door.”

A moment later she was striding into the suite. Adlainn Selgrene—Gramme's lady-in-waiting—dropped her needlework and gave a little shriek as Muriele marched toward the bedchamber, but at a hard glance from Erren, the small blonde fell quite silent.

Muriele paused at the double doors and spoke to Neil and Erren without looking at them.

“Stay outside for a moment,” she said. “Give them time to get proper.” Then she took the handle and shoved the doors open.

The lady Gramme and William II were a pink tangle of limbs on her enormous bed.
People look rather stupid in the act of sex,
Muriele thought, oddly detached.
Helpless and stupid, like babies without the charm.