Embarrassed, almost shamefaced, she had revealed her conversation with the goddess. I m only telling you part of it. I know you must find your friends, she said. I accept that. But we can t neglect the signs.
What signs? asked Lukas, though he knew. He hated these signs. He had spent years perfecting the art of chasing enemies or game, turning every broken stick into a narrative, a vision of the past. In a muddy puddle he could see, as if reflected in a mirror, an image of the creatures who had stepped that way or so he told himself.
But these signs were like a joke. They d found the first more than a mile from the coast, far beyond the wreckage from the wave. It was the body of a lycanthrope, hanging upside down from the bough of a white pine tree, not a mark on him. Rigor mortis had frozen his face into a horrifying rictus, a parody of a human smile. It had extended his right arm perpendicular to his body, had even extended his forefinger, which had pointed uphill.
What kind of a narrative was that? Later on, three twigs had formed an arrow pointing along the ridge, though there wasn t any sign of the person that had made it, not so much as a bent blade of grass. Half a mile onward, a spider s web was soaked in dew, the outline of an arrow spun into its fabric.
Irritated, Lukas had kicked it from the stalks of grass that held it. Not that it mattered for the first day the goddess had led them in the direction he would have chosen anyway, back to Kork Head, where he could pick up Marikke s trail again. In his mind he held a vision of her and the boy held captive in a wooden cage, surrounded by a pack of howling lycanthropes. Marikke had her arms around the little shifter, protecting him. The Savage could take care of himself, at least in the ranger s imagination he was never there, was always somewhere else.
But on the morning of the second day, the goddess had tried to lead them inward, away from the coastal swamp where he and Gaspar-shen had chosen the wrong way their first night on Moray Island. And when he had reminded Amaranth of her promise that they would look for his friends first of all she had acquiesced. Still, she found it hard to look at him and spoke instead to the genasi, or to her brother, the wolf. She had allowed him to lead her toward Kork Head, but the goddess would have none of it. A couple of hours after they d turned their backs on her last blaze of signs a sequence of aspen trees whose leaves, though it was springtime, had already changed color they discovered something new.
The wolf s name was Coal, because of a black mark on his forehead. He ran down a rabbit, tore into its stomach, and there, packed inside the viscera, was a slip of ivory or a spur of bone that was not natural. The rabbit had been slow and sick. And the piece of bone had writing on it, miniature letters written in a bloody ink, a fey script that Amaranth and Lukas could decipher once Coal had brought it to them the bone tasted awful, he indicated in a series of grunts.
Lukas held the piece of bone up to his eye. Here is what the letters said: You are stupid. Is your friend a freak? He is not from the real world.
Impassive, the genasi scratched his arms, running his sharp nails along the lines that ran under his skin like glowing veins. His thin lips closed and opened, but he said nothing.
They continued southeast. In the afternoon Coal caught another animal, an otter on the bank of a small stream. The otter didn t slip into the water, didn t run away. His head and body were covered with tumors, and his little eyes, when Coal slit his belly, seemed to be pleading for release. A stink rose from his insides, and a black fluid erupted from his body, as if it had been held under pressure by his skin. Coal jumped back, and the fluid splattered on the dry ground, leaving tiny marks in the same fey script: Stupid, stupid.
But they pressed on. As they neared the coast, they discovered a man sitting on a stump. He was ancient, asleep in the sunlight, his long white beard sunk to his chest, his long white hair struggling out from underneath his broad-brimmed hat. He was dressed in rags, and a walking stick lay beside him. At first Lukas imagined he too had expired, and that they were supposed to open him up to find some new insulting signal from the Earthmother. He d be damned if he did that. But there was no human habitation in fifty miles, and there was no reason for this man to be here, no way for him to get here to this glade in the woods with no path or road to follow.
They gathered around him, and he opened his bleary, ice-blue eyes. If he was frightened of the wolf, he didn t show it. He spoke in the Common tongue, his voice high and weak, The goddess be praised. It is as she told me years ago, that at the end I would see a genasi warrior, and a beautiful maiden, and a wild beast, and a stubborn fool. That would be the end of my life s passage, and the beginning of another journey that would take me far from here, beyond the Astral Sea. I was just a boy when I saw her in my mother s garden, and since then I have wandered my life away, searching for this moment. Here it is at last. And I was to give you a message let me see. She made me repeat it over and over. Let me see
His voice trailed away. Cursing silently, Lukas bent down over him, close enough to smell his foul breath, his teeth worn to carious stumps. Let me see, the old man mumbled. It was so long ago. I saw here in the garden she was just a little girl. A girl my own age, but I knew who she was. Since then I have looked for her all over the Sword Coast, and now all through these islands not for me to follow in my father s trade. Not for me to marry and have children. But all these years I have been searching for you four at first I thought it would be a matter of months! A year at most. I did not guess it would consume my life oh, I am ready to see her again.
The message, suggested Lukas grimly. The old man was pitiable, but he refused to pity him. This was all Chauntea s trick, an invention of the past few hours.
Amaranth, though, went down on her knees and took his hand.
Younger than you, he said, and not as pretty. But I knew who she was. She made me repeat the message in a language I didn t understand I hope I can remember it. I made a little song out of it and would repeat it to myself before I went to sleep.
Amaranth had tears in her eyes. Lukas had an inclination to seize the old man s hat and pull it down over his eyes, or grab hold of his beard and wag his head from side to side. Lukas looked up at the genasi, who studied him impassively. The wolf sat on his haunches in the grass.
The old man closed his eyes, perhaps to compose himself for death, perhaps from the effort of remembering. When he spoke, it was in the primordial language of the gods: Idiot. You re a pig s ass. Your nose is like a big, fat turd, and your friend is ugly. You ve taken the girl far afield, and for what? The daemonfey is going toward the same place. The loregem showed him, and you will meet him there. Tarkhaan s son, Bishtek Dlardrageth, whom you call the Savage. This is my desire and command. As for the other two, you must look no further, unless you search in the Nine Hells. They are dead. The priestess and the boy. Malar killed them.
Lukas stood up straight. You re lying.
Am not. If you don t believe me, wait for a few hours right where you are. You ll see Malar face to face. No, here, the old man continued, stretching out his clawlike hand.
I ll show you.
But he didn t. Instead he fell backward off the stump, legs in the air.
Amaranth bent over him. Oh, dear, she said.
Leave him, Lukas said.
No. How can you be so heartless? she said. She had been holding the old man s hand, but now she pulled away in disgust, because the hand had come apart. She staggered up, and together they watched the old man s body subside, as if through an instantaneous process of decomposition his flesh was dry as ash. After a moment Gaspar-shen drew his scimitar. With its hooked end he drew back the brim of the man s hat, showing the heap of powder that had been his skull, while clumps of his beard and hair drifted away.
He was a liar, Lukas said again. He didn t show me anything. And the golden elf has no demon blood, I d swear to it. You d be able to see it in his face, he continued, remembering a morning when he had seen the Savage washing, seen the scars along his back, the sharp bones of his vertebrae almost like spines. And Marikke and Kip aren t dead. And he didn t show me anything, he concluded, repeating himself lamely, while at the same time he could not but imagine the Beastlord in his panther s shape bounding toward them through the forest, surrounded by his pack of wolves.
After a moment s waiting while Lukas overcame his doubts, they turned back the way they d come.
But it was the Savage and the wolf that first arrived at the place. They had crossed a river near an abandoned town, the stone streets empty, the roofs caved in. But the bridge to the far bank was intact, an elegant single span, and on the other side a raised cobblestone track that led into the marsh what had once been, the Savage guessed, irrigated agricultural land, now flooded and overgrown. But then they passed an earthen dike and the road gave out, and then they were in the marsh itself, and the way was difficult. Not for Eleuthra, who slid through the undergrowth and loped tirelessly ahead, but for the Savage, who slapped at the mosquitoes and stumbled through the muck. In places he had to cut himself free with the king s sword, whose edge was
