Trial of Fire (21 page)

‘More lies!’ she hissed, but she was listening.

‘You know him as simply a man, my dear. I know him as my Enemy, and believe me, I need no lies. Robert Douglas is afraid. He’s afraid to face me, and afraid to fight me. Most of all, he is afraid of his destiny.’ Nash paused, smiling a little at her open horror. ‘Come. Surely Lusara will be better off if we two are friends? You know the Prophecy decrees that we belong together. Why continue to fight it when we both know there can be no other outcome?’

Jennifer opened her mouth, but didn’t speak initially, as though she was at war with herself, with what she could and couldn’t say. ‘The Prophecy does not
guarantee
the future. We can defeat you, no matter what words you may use. What matters is only our actions.’

‘Really? Then my ancestor, Bayazit of Yedicale should have called it the Action of Destruction rather than the
Word.’
Nash dropped his voice, inching closer to her. ‘It scares you, doesn’t it? That the Douglas has the Word to use when he wants to. That he killed so many people at Elita. That’s why you stopped him at Shan Moss, why you wouldn’t let him kill me with it.’

‘But you said he
couldn’t
kill you with it!’

Nash grinned, loving her confusion. ‘Yes, I did. But
you
didn’t know that at the time, did you? You still saved me from him, no matter what else you might say, and for that, you have my thanks.’

‘I don’t want your thanks!’

‘Then what do you want?’

‘Your … your—’

‘Death? See? You can’t even say it. Because you know it won’t happen, and it won’t happen because your hero is flawed – and ultimately, because the Prophecy will give him only one choice: to surrender you to me, or be the cause of your destruction. No matter what he does, he will kill you. Your only hope of surviving is to come to me.’

*

Robert would allow only Finnlay to help him. Together they adjusted the saddle on Jenn’s horse; she was not heavy, so the animal would be fresher and more able to handle the coming ride. Robert ate some sweet dried figs and apricots, but couldn’t cope with anything heavier, no matter his body’s needs. He drank water only, needing to be alert and focused. He found extra padding to put between the Key and his back and ensured the horse ate nothing, but drank its fill. This was all the rest he would get, and it wasn’t enough. The numbing waves of exhaustion which swept over him were almost enough to make him call the whole thing off. He tried not to pace up and down, and to ignore the growing terror coiling in the pit of his stomach.

He listened: to the forest around him, to the river rippling behind him, as though nothing of importance was happening. He listened for the signal Jenn would send, via mindspeech, that he should be ready to move. He listened for their conversation, though he couldn’t possibly hear so far away.

He couldn’t breathe properly; it hurt to fill his chest. He shouldn’t have let her go, shouldn’t have ever allowed her to become entangled in this whole nightmare. The day he’d met her, he should have – what? Left her to the Guilde to execute as a horse thief? Left her, a child of seventeen, to wander Shan Moss on her own?

By the gods, he just wanted this over, wanted her away from
him
. He wanted to go and drag her to safety and blast Nash’s body into a million pieces … The others were all watching him from their positions, huddled in relative safety, eyes wide, fear clear on their faces. But there was a lot of courage, too, even amongst the children, Andrew included. He felt their eyes on him, their questions, their hopes. Their trust.

Finnlay’s hand reached out and grabbed his arm, halting him. ‘No, Robert, you must not go out there!’

He stopped and looked back – he’d marched a dozen feet from his horse without realising it.

‘Jenn is safe as long as the Key is here. It
will
protect her. We’re prepared to fight if we have to, set to flee when we can. We have masks all ready to slip into place the moment you leave. Now, please, Robert, try to rest.’

He agreed, returning to his horse, to where the Key sat in its bag on the ground, waiting for him to put it on his back again, for him to make another mask and hide its miserable existence. He
had
to be able to do this.

*

Jenn froze as the sickening truth rattled her. Nash sat there, almost vibrating with life, his dark hair blown by the wind, trimmed beard and black eyes framing his so-very-ordinary face. But it was those black eyes which gave away the evil inside, eyes which smiled at her now with ill-concealed triumph.

The Prophecy. Sweet Mineah,
no!
All Robert’s fears, all his nightmares: all true. All these years, his hopes that somehow the ending had become garbled over time and lost its true meaning; his determination to defeat the Prophecy, no matter what: all this was for nothing. How could she tell him?

‘You seem surprised.’ Nash leaned closer; it was all she could do not to flinch. Instead, she again played upon her genuine discomfort, burying her fear and her fury, allowing her eyes to flicker once more over the soldiers in his band, at the woman, Valena, still bound and trussed like a slave – a slave to her past as much to her future.

Nash had regenerated. They had lost the advantage and now swung back the other way. She could not falter now. She was Robert’s only hope.
The Prophecy does not guarantee the future
. Her own words seemed to echo across the meadow, soaking into the bright spring grass. Sunrise was just a few minutes away now; soon the field would be flooded with light: a force not even Nash could ignore.

Robert?

I’m here and ready.

Mount up and be prepared to ride when I say.

A moment later,
Done and ready.

Robert, he’s regenerated, and very strong. Please be careful.

I will.

‘But how much of this surprise is genuine, I wonder?’ Nash continued without appearing to notice her momentary shift in concentration. ‘Did you truly not know the ending of the Prophecy? If he kept you in ignorance all this time, then he is more cruel than I gave him credit for. And you charge me with being evil? I ask you, my dear,’ Nash looked into her eyes, ‘is
he
everything you hoped for in a man?’

‘He is more than you could hope to be if you lived a thousand years!’

Nash took the bait. ‘The difference being, of course, that I
will
live to a thousand years, whereas—’

She didn’t hear the rest directly.
Robert? He’s distracted. Go now. The illusion will follow.

On my way.

She wanted desperately to call after him, but she could afford no more risks. Nash was suspicious enough of her presence, and there were a limited number of things she could reasonably talk to him about without increasing that suspicion. She had gained Robert all the time she could; prolonging the inevitable wouldn’t make it go away.

Though she kept her eyes on Nash as he talked about how superior he was, how destined he was to win, she once more reached out, as she had taught herself to do, into the air, into the ground beneath her, into the trees around her, into the song of the birds awaking the dawn. She drew them all into herself and twisted until they wound together. With the smallest of efforts, she reached out again, this time to place another image back upon the landscape: one lie to combat another.

*

Nash felt a wrench. The Key was moving. The Enemy was trying to steal it from him. The motion drowned his hearing and drew him into a pit of rage. With a roar, he called out to his men to ride forward in pursuit, then grabbed a strong hold on the link. He could
see
the Enemy riding with it, with his whole band galloping behind him—

But at least he still had the Ally.

Nash turned back to her, a hand raised, ready to ward off any sudden attack she might make – but she had disappeared. Literally. Even as his men galloped past him, he looked around, but as far as the eye could see, there was no sign of her, though she could not possibly have run all the way back to the forest in so short a time.

The link with the Key trembled in his grasp. He had no time to wonder where she was now, he had to follow the Key or he would lose it. Kicking his horse viciously, he galloped after his men, turning around the hill to see a flash of colour disappearing into the trees on the other side of the river. Without pausing, he shouted orders; his men immediately raced for the flatstone bridge.

As he crossed behind them, he could hear Valena laughing at him, calling out to him with a voice laced with drugs and hate, ‘He’s done it again! You are such a fool! So easy to trick, and all because of her—’

*

Robert kept his body low on the horse, setting his Senses to run before him, Seeking out the best possible route between the trees, making the most of forest paths and woodcutters’ clearings, anticipating the fall and rise of the land. He could not afford a single mistake, or he would be dead, and the Key – and Jenn – would be lost for ever.

Only once did he glance over his shoulder, to find the uncanny image
following him like a shadow, faceless and eerie. Jenn had obviously forgone accuracy in favour of longevity. Details in this image were kept to a minimum, but they would be enough to fool somebody in pursuit – and that was all Robert needed.

He burned to know what Jenn had said to Nash, or what he had said to her in return. She had sounded very shaken when she had mindspoken him, but asking about it was impossible. He didn’t even dare try to mindspeak her; he had no way of knowing how much control of the image she had.

So he kept his head down, now and then looking up at the sun through the budding trees. He would go until her image vanished, or until Nash was well and truly lost behind him. Then he would find the nearest cover and mask both himself and the Key.

Nash had been easy to fool this time, but this trick would work only once. Next time, he would have to fight, Prophecy or not.

*

‘Mother? Mother, please, open your eyes. Finnlay says we have to move.’ Andrew squeezed her shoulder a little harder and shook until, slowly, her eyes opened. She blinked twice, took a deep breath, and focused on his face.

He’d found her sitting behind a small knot of trees north of the meadow. Her horse was tied to a branch and she was sitting on the ground, her back to the trunk, her hands folded neatly on her lap. She looked as though she’d been there for a while, though it couldn’t have been more than half an hour since she’d ridden out to meet Nash.

‘Mother?’

‘Yes, Andrew, I’m fine.’ She breathed deeply again and took his offered hand. Using her son as leverage, she got to her feet, brushing down her clothing before frowning up at the sky.

‘How did everything go?’ Andrew swallowed hard. ‘I came out to get you … you didn’t come back and you weren’t with Nash. I was afraid you’d— he’d—’

She turned horrified eyes on him and, without a word, swept him up in a fierce hug. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry! I had no time to warn you. Come, let’s walk. Finnlay’s right, we need to get away now, before Nash realises he’s been tricked.’

‘But you—’

She smiled at him and tucked her hand inside his elbow. Their horses walked on beside them. ‘I was never out there, Andrew. I sent him an image of me, no more. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get away.’

Andrew, accustomed to the odd way in which her powers worked compared with the other sorcerers, smiled. Looking at the others already
mounting up as they turned the corner of the hill, he murmured, ‘Mother, are you and Robert …’ He paused, his throat tightening as she turned wide eyes on him. Everyone said he had her eyes; was this what he looked like when he was surprised?

‘Are Robert and I what?’

‘I thought you were enemies,’ he stammered, his eyes darting to where Finnlay was watching them, almost pacing in his urgency to get going. He looked back at Jenn to find her smiling.

‘Robert has often said he and I are on opposite sides, but never once, since the day I met him, have we been enemies. But no matter what he says, we are both working for the same goal. Don’t you ever worry about that, Andrew. Now come, before Finnlay breaks something.’

Night fell suddenly, with a cold wind whipping around the horse’s tails and a moon quickly swallowed up by murky clouds. No matter how closely Andrew pulled the cloak about his neck, nor how firmly he pressed his hands into his gloves, he couldn’t quite get rid of the shiver rippling down his spine.

This waiting made him feel ill; he knew he wasn’t the only one who felt that way, and it was small comfort that he wasn’t the worst at hiding it. Finnlay, wrapped up in his own cloak, his expression grim, stood in the shadows of a nearby tree, his gaze locked on the narrow gully leading to Robert’s hideaway cave.

Robert was overdue. The rest of them had arrived shortly after noon and now, six hours later, there was still no sign of him. Inside, they were setting up beds, lighting fires, cooking their first real meal for more than a week. These caves were nothing like the Goleth: they were smaller, and not ideally shaped for people to live in, but they gave shelter, and for the moment, they offered a safe haven.

Andrew knew his mother was praying that the cave would be deep enough to hide the Key from Nash. Andrew was simply hoping Robert would come back so the Key’s safety would be
their
main problem and not
his.

Finnlay left his shelter and paced away for a few steps; all Andrew could see of him was his black outline against the dark night.

‘Can’t you Seek for him?’ he asked quietly.

‘What, and give away our position as well?’

Andrew swallowed hard at the reminder. Nash knew Finnlay’s aura – if Finnlay tried to Seek Robert, Nash might be able to find them, and then they would have nowhere to hide.

‘You should go inside,’ Finnlay added after a moment, his voice softer. ‘Get something to eat, get some rest. I can stand watch on my own.’

Andrew was a little hungry, but there was something horribly unsettling about the prospect of eating a normal meal, chatting to people when the man they all depended on so much was still out there, in the cold spring night, possibly at Nash’s mercy.