“You know nothing,” he grumbled.
“Then enlighten us.”
Krevan glowered. “The skull belonged to a rogue god that stumbled out of the hinterland into a realm of the Eighth Land. Such a trespass burnt the flesh. Even the bones should have been consumed, but someone preserved the skull, granted it to the god of Saysh Mal.”
Tylar nodded to the thief. “I gathered as much from Rogger. He stole it during his pilgrimage stop in that god-realm. But I hadn’t heard more of his tale, what with our rough landing and the cursed storm.”
Krevan’s brow darkened as he stared toward Rogger.
“Perhaps we should hear both your stories,” Tylar said.
Rogger shrugged. “My tale is not that rich. I continued with my pilgrimage last year as a way of skirting through the god-realms, looking for any evidence of the Cabal.” He pulled back a sleeve to reveal the scarred brandings. “Such punishment of the flesh was fair trade to hear the rumblings and rumors among the underfolk of the various lands. Tongues wag more easily when the only ears nearby are those of a ragged beggar on a stoop.”
Tylar waved for Rogger to continue. Even Dart knew that the thief’s pilgrimage was more than it had seemed.
“So there I was, running out of blank skin when I stumbled into the jungle realm of the Huntress. And up to then, not a peep nor peck from the Cabal. As soon as I set foot in that realm, it weren’t hard to tell something was amiss. The people of that land went about with their heads tucked low. I saw more brawls in the tavernhouses in one night than in a fortnight elsewhere. Bodies were left in alleys to rot. That is not what I had expected to find. Saysh Mal was not a high place, but it was fairly wrought from all I’d heard. Lived by some code of honorable conduct. No longer. What I saw there more reminded me of ol’ Balger’s Foulsham Dell, corrupted and low of spirit.”
“So what happened there?” Dart asked. She knew Brant hailed from that realm.
“I went to present myself to the Huntress in her treetop castillion. I did my proper obeisance, took her sigil to my thigh, and thought to move on. But word among the underfolk at the castillion suggested their mistress might be the source of the decrepitude. She had grown sullen, pulled away from her people, seldom showed herself. The flow of her humours slowed, then stopped. It was said she even had one of her own Hands imprisoned. Such strangeness warranted further inquiries. A few pinches spent on ale, a few silver yokes rolled onto palms, and I heard more. How the Huntress retreated often to a private chamber, spent days in there alone. The underfolk reported hearing her whispering in there…laughing sometimes, cursing at other times.”
“Who else was in there?” Tylar asked.
“That’s just it. No one. She was alone. She kept some treasure in there, a talisman, hidden behind lock and curse.” Rogger shrugged.
“So you had to take a look,” Tylar said.
“How could I not? It surely sounded like another incursion by the Cabal, another tainted realm. So I snuck in there and saw the talisman, a skull resting on a golden cushion. From its ilked shape, there was little doubt that it had something to do with the Cabal, a slow poison meant to corrupt yet another god. There was only one clear course.”
“You stole it.”
Rogger nodded. “Best to get it out of there, away from the Huntress and her realm, away from all the god- realms. And I guess I was right. Look what happened when I set foot in Chrismferry.”
“What happened?” Krevan asked, his eyes narrowing.
Dart listened in horror as Tylar described the attack by ilk-beasts. He explained, “Master Gerrod believes the seersong drew upon the taint left behind by Chrism and cast forth a curse.”
“So to keep it out of the god-realms, I finally brought it here,” Rogger concluded. “Tashijan lies nestled among the god-realms, but is not a god-realm itself. And with all the knowledgeable masters buried beneath these towers, here seemed a good place to have the skull’s secret plied from its bones.”
Krevan’s dark expression had not changed. “You meddle in matters beyond your understanding.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Rogger mumbled. “And probably not the last.”
Tylar lifted a hand. “Plainly the skull is some talisman of the Cabal. I don’t-”
Krevan cut him off, voice booming with authority. “The skull is not some Cabalistic talisman. Have you not been listening? The skull came from a rogue god who trespassed into that realm.” His voice lowered. “And it wasn’t just any rogue god.”
Tylar’s brow crinkled, but Dart understood. She’d known the truth from the moment Krevan first described the rogue’s trespass. From the glance he had given her. From his earlier words to her.
“He was my father,” she said, gripping her bed’s ticking with both hands.
Tylar gaped between her and the pirate.
Krevan paced a bit but did not deny it. “Eylan…the Wyr-mistress…it was she who brought word out of the hinterland, of this godling’s birth.” An arm waved to Dart. “Word carried from this one’s mother, begging for her child to be taken to safe harbors.”
Tylar nodded. “Ser Henri took her in, kept her hidden.”
Krevan continued as if he hadn’t heard, one hand on his brow. “For centuries, the Wyr-lords have had tenuous dealings with the rogues, trading in alchemies and humours. They know the true nature of the ravening creatures better than any. And after Dart was secured, their interest focused upon the parents.”
“Why?” Tylar asked. “Such births are rare. Only two in four centuries. And rogues slip in and out of ravings, spending more of their lives like beasts than gods. What did they hope to learn?”
“The Wyr-lords believed there was something special about this pair of gods. They were perplexed. What made this seed take root when so many other ruttings among the wild gods failed? So they watched and waited, spied and plotted. As you know, the Wyr are drawn to Grace of an unusual nature.”
Dart glanced to Tylar. The regent had personal experience with such interest.
“The dam fell into full rave after the child was taken, waging a swath of madness. She vanished into caverns beneath Middleback a decade ago and has yet to resurface. Perhaps dead, perhaps in some raving dream, perhaps even escaped out some other tunnel long ago. But the sire…he remained strangely grounded, whisking from hinterland to hinterland. The Wyr had a difficult time tracking him from place to place. It was like-”
“-he knew he was being hunted,” Rogger said.
Krevan nodded. “They lost him when he reached the Eighth Land. It is a maze of hinterlands.”
“How long ago was that?” Tylar asked.
“Going on seven years.”
“And the Wyr have still been hunting for him all this time?”
“They have strategies that cross centuries. A handful of years is nothing to them. They scoured the hinterlands across all of Myrillia, searching for some trace or sign of him.”
Of my father, Dart thought, still struggling with the revelation.
Rogger coughed with a trace of amusement. “And all this time he’s been locked under key in the Huntress’s castillion. Now that’s what I call a good hiding place. ’Course, there is a downside-you’re dead.”
“But what made him trespass into one of the god-realms in the first place?” Tylar asked. “Did he fear the Wyr’s hunters so much that he killed himself?”
“No. Unlike our thief here, I did some study of the skull’s history in Saysh Mal. The rogue entered the realm a full two years after the Wyr lost his trail among the twisted maze of hinterlands down there. Some other purpose drove the rogue into that realm.”
“And what purpose might that be?” Rogger asked, setting his shoulders a bit stiffly.
Krevan shook his head. “That I still don’t know. The Wyr refused to tell me more.”
Tylar frowned at Krevan. “Considering your hatred of Wyrd Bennifren, I’m surprised you are so well informed about all this.”
“They hired the Flaggers,” Krevan grumbled sourly.
“What? I thought there was great enmity between you and Wyrd Bennifren?”
“Yet, in this matter, there was also great urgency.”
“How so? What did they want?”
“To help find the missing rogue. Three seasons ago, they found the first crumb of a trail long gone cold. A
