The Hallowed Hunt

side of the south sea, who is either a prince, or a pirate—it is hard to be sure. Prince Jokol, fondly nicknamed by his loyal crew Jokol Skullsplitter, I am informed. I didn’t think those white bears could be tamed, but he seems to have made a pet of this one since it was a cub, which makes the gift even more dear, I suppose. I cannot imagine what the voyage was like; they say they met storms. I suspect he is quite mad. In any case, he also brought several large ingots of high-grade silver for the bear’s upkeep, which apparently robbed the temple menagerie-master of the wits to refuse the gift. Or bribe.'

'Bribe for what?'

'The Skullsplitter wants a divine, to carry off to his glacier-ridden island in place of his bear. This is a fine work of missionary duty that any divine should be proud to undertake. Volunteers have been called for. Twice. If none steps forth by the time the prince is ready to cast off again, one will simply have to be found. Dragged from under a bed, perhaps.' His grin flickered again. 'I can afford to laugh; they can’t send me. Ah, well.' He sighed once more and set the letter before him on the table, with the wax seal uppermost. He bent his head over it.

The amusement drained from Ingrey, and he came alert. His blood—that blood —seemed to spin up like a vortex. Lewko did not bear the braid of a sorcerer, he did not smell of a demon, and yet Temple sorcerers answered to him... ? Threw their most complicated dilemmas in his lap?

Lewko laid his hand across the wax seal, and his eyes closed briefly. Something flared about him. It was nothing Ingrey saw with his eyes or smelled with his nose, but it made the hair stir at the nape of his neck. He’d felt a trace of this stomach-wrenching awe once before, from a stronger source, but with inner senses at the time much weaker. At the end of his futile pilgrimage to Darthaca, in the presence of a small, stout, harried fellow, to all appearances ordinary, who sat down quietly and let a god reach through him into the world of matter.

Lewko’s not a sorcerer. He’s a saint, or petty saint. And he knew who Ingrey was, and he had seemingly been here at the temple for years, judging by the state of his study, but Ingrey had never seen—or was that, noticed?—him before. Certainly not in the company of any of the high Temple divines who waited upon the sealmaster or the king’s court, all of whom Ingrey had dutifully memorized.

Lewko glanced up; there was not much humor in his eyes now. 'You are Sealmaster Hetwar’s man, are you not?' he inquired mildly.

Ingrey nodded.

'This letter has been opened.'

'Not by me, Learned.'

'Who, then?'

Ingrey’s mind sped back. From Hallana to Ijada to him... Ijada? Surely not. Had it ever been out of her possession, parted from her bosom? It had rested in that inner pocket of the riding habit, which she had worn... all but at the dinner at Earl Horseriver’s. And Wencel had left the table to receive an urgent message... indeed. Easy enough for the earl to overawe and suborn that warden to rifle Ijada’s luggage, but had Wencel thought to use some shaman trick to fool a sorcerer about his prying? But Lewko is not a sorcerer, now, is he. Not exactly. Ingrey temporized: 'Without proof, any guess of mine would be but slander, Learned.'

Lewko’s look grew uncomfortably penetrating, but to Ingrey’s relief he dropped his eyes to the letter again. 'Well, let us see,' he muttered, and stripped it open, scattering wax.

He read intently for a few minutes, then shook his head and stood to lean nearer to the window. Twice, he turned the closely written paper sideways. Once, he glanced across at Ingrey and inquired rather plaintively, 'Does the phrase broke his chants mean anything to you?'

'Um, could that be, chains?' Ingrey ventured.

Lewko brightened. 'Ah! Yes, it could! That makes much more sense.' He read on. 'Or perhaps it doesn’t... '

Lewko came to the end, frowned, and started over. He waved vaguely toward a wall. 'I believe there is a camp stool under that pile. Help yourself, Lord Ingrey.'

By the time Ingrey had extracted it, snapped it open, and perched himself upon its leather seat, Lewko looked up again.

'I pity the spy who had to decipher this,' he said, without heat.

'Is it in code?'

'No: Hallana’s handwriting. Written in haste, I deem. It takes practice—which I grant I have—to unravel. Well, I’ve suffered worse for less reward. Not from Hallana, she always touches the essential. One of her several uncomfortable talents. That demure smile masks a holy recklessness. And ruthlessness. The Father be thanked for Oswin’s moderating influence. Such as it is.'

'You know her well?' Ingrey inquired. Or, why does this paragon write to you, alone of all the Temple functionaries in Easthome?

Lewko rolled the letter and tapped it gently on the edge of the table. 'I was assigned to be her mentor, many years ago, when she so unexpectedly became a sorceress.'

Surely it took one sorcerer to teach another. Therefore and therefore... Like a stone across the water, Ingrey’s mind skipped two begged questions to arrive at a third. 'How does a man become a former sorcerer? Undamaged?' It was the task of that Darthacan saint to destroy illicit sorcerers, who were reported to fight like madmen against the amputation of their powers, but Learned Lewko had surely not been such a renegade.

'It is possible to lay down the gift.' Lewko’s mouth hovered between faint amusement and faint regret. 'If one chooses to in time.'

'Is it not a wrench?'

'I didn’t say it was easy. In fact'—his voice softened still further—'it takes a miracle.'

What was this man? 'I have served four years here in Easthome. I’m surprised our paths have not crossed before.'

'But they have. In a sense. I am very familiar with your case, Lord Ingrey.'

Ingrey stiffened, especially at Lewko’s choice of words: case. 'Were you the Temple sorcerer sent to Birchgrove with the inquiry to examine me?' He frowned. 'My memories of that time are confused and dark, but I do not remember you.'

'No, that was another man. My involvement at the time was less direct. The inquirer brought me a bag of ashes from the castle, to turn back into a letter of confession.'

Ingrey’s brow wrinkled. 'Isn’t that what I believe Learned Hallana would call a bit uphill for Temple magic? Chaos forced back to order?'

'Indeed and alas, it was. It cost me a month’s work and probably a year of my calling. And all for very little, as it turned out, to my fury. What do you remember of Learned Cumril? The young Temple sorcerer whom your father suborned?'

Ingrey stiffened still further. 'From an acquaintance lasting the space of an hour’s meal and a quarter of an hour’s rite, not much. All his attention was on my father. I was an afterthought.' He added truculently, 'And how do you know who suborned whom, after all?'

'That much was clear. Less clear was how. Not for money. I think not for threats. There was a reason— Cumril imagined himself doing something good, or at least heroic, that went horribly awry.'

'How can you guess his heart when you don’t even know what his mind was about?'

'Oh, that part I don’t have to guess. It was in his letter. Once I’d reassembled it. A three-page screed descanting upon his woe, guilt, and remorse. And scarcely one useful fact that we didn’t already know.' Lewko grimaced.

'If Cumril wrote the confession, who burned it?' asked Ingrey.

'Now, that is a guess of mine.' Lewko leaned back in his chair, eyeing Ingrey shrewdly. 'And yet I am surer of it than many an assertion for which I had more material proof. Do you understand the difference between a sorcerer who rides his demon, and one who is ridden?'

'Hallana spoke of it. It seemed subtle.'

'Not from the inside. The difference is very clear. The gulf between a man who uses a power for his purposes, and a power that uses a man for its purposes, is... sometimes less than an ant’s stride across. I know. I