The Sacred Hunt Duology (53 page)

“We break the Summer circle. We deny the living.” Again she shook her hand, and again blood hit the ground as if it had become unnatural.

“We break the Autumn circle. We deny the dying.” A third time, her hands flew. She cast a shadow in the orange light of Zareth Kahn's protective magery; it was a long shadow that fell over them all, deepening and chilling as the seconds passed. Even Espere stopped her circling, her soft growl, and moved quietly to Evayne's side.

“What are you doing, little seer? You cannot hope to escape us.” But the words of the demoness had lost some of their grandeur, their glamour. She frowned, and gestured for the shadows that leaped up from the ground like eager counselors.

Evayne paid her no heed, for shadows of her own summoning now darkened the clearing. “We have come, free of coercion, to the hidden road, and we know well that we will walk it in Winter. I am Evayne a'
Neamis;
I have walked the Oracle's road, I have seen the Oracle's vision, I have made the Choice. The hidden path cannot be denied me. You ask for power and I speak with its voice. I bid thee: Open!”

“NO!”

The world fell away.

• • •

Sor na Shannen's cry of denial echoed in the hollows of the strange forest the land suddenly became. Trees, sharply defined even in the poor light, stood bare of leaves, and perhaps even of bark.

Are they trees? Stephen wondered.

“Keep to the road!” Evayne snapped. “Do not set a foot off it; do not even move
down it without my guidance. Is that clear?” She opened her mouth to say more, and then bit back the words, shook her head sharply, and turned her back upon them. There was a curious finality to the gesture.

The demons were gone. They were safe.

But it certainly didn't feel that way.

Stephen swallowed and nodded. He expected Gilliam to argue, but Gilliam made no protest; he frowned, but the frown was turned wholly on Espere. She was pale, as white as the snow, and her eyes were wide, golden circles. The hair along her neck bristled; her gaze flickered from side to side as if she were surrounded by enemies that not even her nightmares conjured. The demons had not had this effect on Espere.

Stephen didn't need to be bound to her to feel her fear. It was palpable, another distinct presence.

“It is clear,” Zareth Kahn said quietly, “but not necessarily acceptable.” He crossed his arms and looked down at the curtain of midnight-blue that fell from her shoulders to the ground. “I may be mistaken,” he continued, his voice soft and measured enough that one might think it friendly. “I confess my reliable knowledge of magery does not go back further than the dominance of the Dark League.”

Evayne did not respond.

“But I have a cursory knowledge of the history of magery, and the branches of magery that have long since passed into disuse.” He took a step toward her.
“Scarran
was called the dark conjunction, and if I remember correctly, only a Dark Adept could call its power.”

“You remember correctly,” she replied, bowing her head.

“I see.” He took a step back. “I also seem to recall that the magic of the Dark Adepts often required a sacrifice.”

Very slowly, the seeress turned. She cradled her crystal in the crook of her left arm; her right hand covered its surface, obscuring it from sight.

Stephen gasped and shook his head slowly from side to side. Zareth Kahn's power flared to life as he took another step away from Evayne. Or from the woman that had once been Evayne.

Her face was ice, her hair ebony. And her eyes, once violet, were now utterly black. All around her skin, hovering like a fine mist, were gossamer strands of darkness. She no longer appeared fatigued; she no longer appeared to be human.

“A sacrifice?” She laughed bitterly. “Oh, yes, Zareth Kahn. You do know your history. One of us will not leave the Winter road.”

22nd Scaral, 410 A.A.

Averalaan, Twenty-fifth Holding

T
HE SMELL OF SMOKE
and burning wood made the stench of the trough bearable—but it was a near thing. Stale sweat and the sour smell of drinking gone bad clung to the air like lice to an alley mongrel. Jewel scratched her forearm and cursed the very thought of lice.

Carver was into his second mug of what Taverson cheerfully called ale. Jewel was into her second mug as well, but with one important difference; she'd been using her ale to help kill one of the two potted plants in the tavern. She was quite good at surreptitious movement, and only Carver, quite familiar with her dislike for alcohol of any sort, noticed the way she upended her mug into the soil.

Carver kept a dark eye on the tavern doors. They were old, but thicker than a drunk magisterian, and they were wide enough that the place could be cleared in a hurry. Lorrey, the barkeep who tended the trough during the daylight hours, was well protected behind the long, wide bar that stretched end to end across the tavern. To the far end of it was the kitchen and the infamous cellars; beyond that, the door to the alley. The alley was the place where garbage and unwanted human litter often ended up.

There was glass in the two front windows, but they didn't make much difference; when it wasn't raining, half of the tavern front opened into the nearby street, although you still had to walk through the doors to get in. Made as much sense as anything else did.

From his vantage point, Carver could see both the kitchen and the street, although they were sitting far enough back that those on the street couldn't easily see them. Jewel could see neither, but that was just as well; she was busy reading.

He wanted to ask her what she was reading—because, although he'd never have admitted it, he liked the stories she told them after she finished her “studying”—but he could tell by her expression that the only story he was likely to get was one that was a little too real for his liking. He kept quiet.

Old Rath.
Dead. He couldn't imagine it. Rath was a son of Cartanis if ever there
was one—who could kill Rath? He lifted his mug, swallowed, and lowered it again. And how could he be dead? They'd just
seen
Rath. Carver knew the old man well enough to know what he looked like, and he'd heard him shout enough to recognize the sound of his voice.

He glanced at Jewel, who was still absorbed by the papers she held in her lap. Jewel had never been wrong before. Well, not never—but never when it counted. He shivered.

Because if Rath was dead, and that wasn't Rath, then it only went to follow—“Jay?”

“What?”

“How're we going to know if we're really talking to each other? I mean if Rath—”

“I know.” The two words were curt, almost cold, but it was clear that she'd already thought of it. “I'll fix it, Carver. Keep your eyes on the doors.” She went back to her reading, and then looked up a second or two later. “There were things about Rath that he didn't know. If he did, we'd already be dead.”

Carver swallowed air, and then lifted the mug to his face. He looked at the black sheen of hair that was warped in the mug's surface, and shook his head. “Yeah.” What he wanted to say was,
It's been two hours.
But Jewel knew it just as well as he did.

Hells, she probably knew it better. She was the den mother, after all.

Maybe they've already come and gone
, he thought, as he used the bitter ale to get rid of the dryness in his mouth. It had taken a long time to lose Old Rath—or whoever it was; a lot longer than it normally took Carver to lose a single pursuer.
If
, he thought grimly,
we lost him at all.

Carver wasn't one to pray much; it was a point of pride with him. So he bit the edge of his mug and stared around the tavern as if he were a drowning man in search of land.

• • •

Jewel
, Old Rath had written, which meant it
had
to be bad news,
if you're reading this, I'm probably already dead. I should speak with you before leaving, but I'm not going to; I've got my own reasons for what I do, and I'm not about to explain them to a young slip of an overeager, over-intelligent, under-ambitious young woman.

The most important news I have is this: The tunnels must be revealed. I know what it's meant to your den-kin, and I know what it's meant to me—but we were both living by the grace of Kalliaris' whim, and she's stopped smiling for good.

I've done some research in the last few weeks, and it's become clear to me that it isn't just your den that's suffered. All through the thirty-fifth, the thirty-second, and the seventeenth holdings, people have been mysteriously disappearing—for well over eleven years now.

And I don't think it's a coincidence that it was just over eleven years ago that I first discovered the tunnels. Nor a coincidence that no one seems to have discovered those tunnels
before
—
or since. There haven't been any bodies turned up, so it's pretty easy for the magisterians to assume that people have just moved on.

That's what I assumed. At first.

For the first few disappearances—from what I've been able to piece together—it was a safe assumption to make. But there've been more than a few that can't be explained. People who were happy enough where they were, or who weren't involved in any of the trades that often lead to an untimely disappearance. I've written a list of their names for you to give to the proper authority.

The proper authority, in this case, is not the magisterians. Whatever you do, keep this information, or rather, the fact that you have it, from them. I've reason to believe that some, or all, of the magisterial guards are not to be trusted in this. It only follows that the magisterial courts may be suspect as well.

You never paid attention, so pay attention now. The magisterians report to the holding courts, which in turn report to the magisterial courts, which in turn report to the courts of Reymaris on the isle, should that be necessary. Magisterians may, therefore, be receiving their orders from three different sources. I know that the magisterians in the three holdings above have been turning a blind eye to the disappearances. But I cannot know whether they've been bought at ground level—which I find highly dubious—or they're in the pay of politically greater masters.

I told you never to explore the tunnels without me. You did. But I trust your instinct and skill; you didn't probe them too deeply or wander too far in their web. It's probably what kept you alive. Someone is using those tunnels to kidnap—and in all probability murder
—
citizens of Averalaan. I don't know why. I thought they might be slavers at first, but when you see the list of victims, you'll understand why that's unlikely.

Someone is going to have to explore the tunnels fully—but that someone had better be both powerful and well-connected enough to override, overrule, or overpower the magisterians
—
or their paymasters
—
who have done their best, over time, to hide the disappearances that have taken place within the three holdings.

Jewel looked up, saw that Carver's gaze darted between the two doors that led into the tavern, and looked down again to the scrawl of letters across fine, stiff paper.

Where was Duster's message? She heard the rustle of paper and realized that she was crushing the scroll. Without a change of expression, she forced her fingers to unfurl.
Come on, Duster, come on. Damn it, where's word?

Carver set his mug to one side and stood, restless. “Jay?”

“No,” she replied curtly. But she knew how he felt; she wanted to get up and scour the streets herself. “Have another.” She forced her attention back to the letter and away from the den that was her life.

Reaching the right person is going to be hard at your station in life.

Jewel gave a mental snort.

But failing to reach the right person will kill you.

Thanks, Rath.

So I am going to break the oath that bound my life and made me who I am.

Which was, all things considered, a rather short-tempered, mean, but loyal sonofabitch. With a quick wit and good manners.

Go to House Terafin. Go quickly, and without delay.

“Jay? Are you all right?”

“Y-yes. Fine. Keep your eyes on the door.”

Speak with The Terafin.

She might as well just cross the bridge to the Holy Isle and demand an audience with the Twin Kings themselves.

“Jay, are you sure?”

She nodded, but without much force. What Rath proposed was ridiculous. If she was lucky, she could get onto the grounds of a minor Terafin relative; the guards would skewer her if she set foot on the manicured lawns that belonged to The Terafin herself. All things considered, she didn't have clothing fine enough to pass herself off as one of the family's lowliest servants.

If as I suspect, you can't get past the guards, tell them that you've been sent with an urgent message. They're quite likely to be skeptical; only tell them that you've been instructed to speak with none save The Terafin. They will ask who sent you. Tell them Ararath Handernesse. If they will not carry the message, loiter until you can speak with a servant, and attempt to get the message carried in that fashion.

But on no account are you to discuss the text of this message with either guards or servants.

That was Rath, through and through. He liked to forget that anyone else in this city had a brain and knew how to use it.

She bit her lip and looked up, remembering an old admonishment to speak well of the dead. Remembering the voice and the words, but not the face, not the figure. Glimpses of early childhood.
Come on, Duster, where are you?

Carver stared back at her. “Don't you have any ‘feeling' about this?”

“I don't know when they're dying,” she snapped back. “I only know when they're dead.” It was the wrong thing to say, and she regretted it before she'd finished speaking, but she wasn't some sort of compass, to be pointed and read.

Carver slammed the mug down, attracting the stares of the nearby patrons.

“Tha's right, boy, don' let no chit of a girl give you trouble,” an older man said, leering in Jewel's direction. He teetered to his feet, took a few steps toward the table, and then stopped as he looked down the length of Jewel's long dagger.

“Get lost,” she said softly. “We don't want trouble, but we'll make it if we have to.” She didn't want to stab him, but she was perfectly willing to—and it was only the last that was written across the fine steel of her expression.

She glared at him until he broke eye contact and retreated to a table that was not as close as the one he'd left. Then she sat with a thud.

“Carver,” she began.

His shrug was his apology and his reply. His eyes went back to the door. Jewel could see the retreat of one black brow as his eyes widened; he was staring doorward.

Without thinking, she bunched up her papers and shoved them back into her shirt. Then she wheeled in her chair, her hand on her dagger.

In the open door, with a little sunlight lighting up currents of wafting smoke around his face, was Arann. He was unmistakable; at sixteen years old, not even in his full growth, he was a barrel-chested giant. The set of his jaw and the grim expression that he usually wore hid the fact that he was, of all her den, the most gentle.

Jewel might have been angry at any other time; orders were orders, and she never gave them without a reason. But she felt relief first and foremost, and then, as Arann staggered into the trough, concern.

She got up, crossed the crowded room, and stopped in front of Arann; this close, the bleeding and bruising was evident. His forehead had been gashed open, and the only thing that kept the blood from running into his eyes was his hair; it was matted and sticky with it. “What happened?” she asked quietly, as she put an arm around her den mate's waist. She couldn't reach his shoulders.

Arann swallowed and winced. He pulled away as a trickle of blood trailed out of the left corner of his lip. “The others—they're here. Duster told us where to run.”

Jay closed her eyes briefly. All right. They were here. She'd have to deal with it—and at least they were all where she could see them.

“What happened to you?”

“Attacked,” Arann replied. He started to say something else, and lost it to a fit of coughing. She gave him time to get his breath; gave him time to clutch his side and slowly straighten up. “Oh, Jay—Duster's gone—she made us leave—we ran—we left her behind—”

“Duster?” Jewel's voice was soft; she couldn't have put any force behind the word had she wanted to.

Arann nodded.

“Carver.” He was already at her shoulder. “The others are outside. Get them in here fast.”

He nodded grimly, all business.

As was she. She made a mental calculation, and then another, slower one. Swallowed. “Arann, does it hurt much?”

“No,” he answered, and she knew he was lying. Angel, Finch, Teller, Jester, Arann, and Carver were all the den she had left—and she didn't intend to lose another.

But she didn't have the money for a healer, and she had a sudden strong feeling that she didn't have the time to wait for one anyway.

Carver came bolting into the tavern, and the rest of her den came at his heels, pale and drawn. Even Angel, ever flamboyant, was absolutely silent. “Jay,” Carver said, throwing a glance over his shoulder. “We've got to run.”

“I know,” she whispered. She looked at Arann and swallowed. “Did any of you bring the box?” That box, small and gray, with chipped paint and enamel, was all that she had taken from her father's possessions. It held the entire monetary worth of the den. Didn't amount to much, but it was all they had.