it into the middle of the dell, into the glowing fire. As it fell, it also erupted into flame then exploded, scattering the radiance, extinguishing all light. And then they were caught in the noisome graveyard smell and the swirling black mist that seemed to stick to their skin, drawing them together even as they moved to defend themselves.
Great, Suka thought, a drow magician, a priestess of disgusting Lolth, a darkwalker from the web between the worlds. But Mindarion also had some kind of power. A small new light had risen up from his clasped hands, a battle between elements that transcended the cold struggle underneath, a struggle that itself seemed less like a battle between mortal creatures than like something supernatural the air was thick and hard to breathe, and so cold that it hurt the lungs. The horses screamed and bolted, staggering away into the trees, some with their manes alight. And the men and the eladrin found themselves pressed together and constrained into the bottom of the dell, fighting enemies that seemed in one moment to be creatures of flesh and blood, and in the next made of smoke or spirit. Near Suka, an eladrin knight was down, his breast hacked to pieces, a hulking figure looming over him. But when she slashed at it her knife divided only air from darkness, mist from light. Men cursed guttural oaths in the Northlander tongue. Above their heads Mindarion s light had made a glowing roof or shelter, against which the burning shafts of the darkwalker Suka could see her prowling the perimeter crashed in explosive spasms, weakening it slowly until finally it caved and foundered, leaving them defenseless against the concussive blast. Suka crouched down with her arms around her head. Looking up, she caught a vague impression of Princess Marabaldia standing over her, bar upraised. Then one final explosion and she staggered and fell, knocking the gnome cold between her feet.
Chapter Twelve — Wolves
The Savage woke at dawn, curled up alone at the bottom of a ravine. For two days he had run from the stone city below Scourtop. During the day and while he was moving, he had not felt the cold, the loss of his shirt. During the night the wolf had kept him warm in the shelter of whatever small trees or bushes they could find. But last night it had rained, and he woke up with his teeth chattering.
He had flint and steel and he made a fire. After half an hour Eleuthra returned, the king s thighbone in her hand. She threw down a brace of fat red squirrels, which the Savage cut apart with his new sword. Its blade, astonishingly sharp, was slightly curved, forged in many layers of tempered, folded steel. A line of runes was etched into the edge, a geometric pattern whose meaning was forever lost.
Similar runes decorated the king s thighbone. The druid threw it carelessly into the rocks. She was dressed in her wolf skin and at that moment, in the dawn light, the Savage found her intolerably beautiful dark hair, high cheekbones, dark eyebrows, dark blue eyes. He imagined his awareness of her beauty had increased since he d first seen her, doubled hour by hour. And he wondered if this feeling was connected to a change in the way she d treated him since they d left the crypt, with her ever-increasing anger.
She stood above him, a faraway look in her eyes. I was on the mountaintop. She gestured vaguely. I was in the thunderclouds. I looked behind us at Malar s temple where the stones are wet with blood. They divided the priestess s body between the altar stones and burned the offerings. The Beastlord has come out to smell the morning air. He is sniffing at our trail.
She raised both hands to her hair and stretched her elbows back, a gesture he found painful, because it displayed her body s shape. He hates you because of the creature you killed. And he hates you because of what you stole because of your greed. Only gold has value to you. Only things, because you live so long. How could you have any feelings for another mortal creature? I hate you too, she said, unnecessarily.
The pain in his forearm, where the dragon had bitten him, had abated. But he was afraid he had absorbed some kind of poison, something that made him lightheaded, weak. He had no strength to muster any kind of illusion, to mask the red slits in the centers of his eyes, to alter his complexion or else blunt his teeth. He had no strength to argue with her. He bent over the squirrel meat, cutting it into chunks.
I was in the clouds, she said again. I saw a storm over Caer Moray, and then it moved off to the south and east. I felt the earth turn over and the battlements fall. Across the straits I saw a storm over Gwynneth Island and the fey. Nature itself rises up, and the Earthmother. In my lifetime I ll see Karador sink into the lake and all the tunnels drowned. All of you will drown like maggots. Your bodies will rise to the surface of the water.
He stared at her, chewing the raw meat. There was no reason to cook it, no reason to pretend. He rubbed his cold hands together and then, as if he wanted to prove her right, he brought out the king s treasure piece by piece from his pockets, fingering the gold as if to warm himself. Already he had wound one of the rings into his yellow hair, and slipped some of the others onto his fingers and thumbs. The inner and outer surfaces were thick with meaningless runes. The metal was soft enough to take a fingerprint if you squeezed hard.
The circlet from the king s brow he slipped over his ears and down onto his shoulders. The druid was right: The gold was a source of comfort, though maybe not in the way she thought. It felt warm to him, warmer than the sunshine that now broke through the clouds. And the jewels he held the demon-eye ruby in his hand and felt the thrill of it against his palm, an electric charge.
I thought you were different, she goaded him. She put her hands on her hips and drew the wolf skin up above her knees.
The goddess help me, I thought so.
All boys are used to this: The more she hated him, the more he wanted her. But it had been a long time since he d felt so young. He closed his eyes, ashamed of his response to her, and brought the jewel up to his lips.
Malar will hunt you down, she said. The goddess help me, he will hunt the both of us.
That same morning in Caer Moray, Lukas and Gaspar-shen stood in the ruins of the courtyard. The curtain wall had collapsed into the ditch along the landward side. The Northlander women were gone from the banquet hall, and many of the lycanthropes, male and female, had slunk away into the woods. The ones that were left wandered over the fields, examining the wreckage cast up by the big wave and marking it stumps, timber, and corpses with their urine.
I have heard, remarked Gaspar-shen, of a man who owns a shop in Chasoln on the other side of the Shining Sea. He builds a confection made of creamed cheese and marzipan in a bed of puff pastry. He wraps it in silver foil and people eat it on the street. The pastry comes apart under your fingers. There are pistachios involved.
I d like to eat one of those, Lukas said. That morning there was nothing to eat in Caer Moray.
I am not sure about that. But I would like to see the face of the man who could invent such a thing, continued the genasi. I would like to walk the streets that smelled of such a thing. I believe we are talking about a town made of wooden houses, with long shaded galleries along the street and slatted blinds against the sun. The town smells like old dust, and oblique sunlight, and pistachios.
All this, Lukas thought, meant that his friend was eager to be gone. And he also had spent as much time as he needed in this mournful place, full of carrion. Lycanthropes, dead, were no different from ordinary animals. Overhead, the air was full of crows.
They stood inside the fallen gate. Both had been scratched and bitten in the fight, though their wounds had scabbed over. Hurt and weary, Lukas sank down on broken stone, the remnant of a cornice, now sunk deep into the ground.
We should find our friends, he said. Kip and Marikke, and the swordmage. I had hoped the Beastlord would bring them here. But I think he has many incarnations.
And the gnome? The genasi s high, airless voice held no expression.
Lukas said, Ever since I looked back from Kork Head and saw the signal fire I ve feared the worst.
These people are liars, he continued, meaning the commissar in King Derid s court who had sent them to Gwynneth Island, and then more particularly the leShay queen.
They play with us like checkers, he murmured, his words sounding weak and carping even to himself. When was it ever different between rich and poor, long- and short-lived, strong and frail?
Outside the gate a crow perched on the head of a fallen bull, part of a team that had brought up the ram. The crow pecked at the animal s eye.
I have heard, said Gaspar-shen, that in Chasoln there were no kings and queens. The citizens elected a guild to administer the town. There was an official to maintain the pistachio supply, and one for marzipan, and one for dough. A person could have had his own shop in the street of filled pastry. Bribes and corruption were unheard
