The Hallowed Hunt

He’d meant it for half a joke, but she took it wholly seriously. 'I think so. Or something of a sort. Something alive must be sustaining them in the world of matter. Remember what Wencel said, about the great rite that Audar interrupted?'

'I don’t trust anything Wencel says.'

She regarded him doubtfully. 'He’s your cousin.'

Ingrey couldn’t decide if she meant that as an argument for or against the earl.

'I do not understand Wencel,' Ijada continued, 'but that rang true to me, it rang in my bones. A great rite that bound the spirit warriors to the Weald itself for their sustenance, until their victory was achieved.' A most unsettled, and unsettling, look stole over her face. 'But they never achieved victory, did they? And the Weald that came back, in the end, was not what they’d lost, but something new. Wencel says it was a betrayal, though I do not see it. It was not their world to choose, anymore.'

A knock sounded on the street door of the narrow house, making Ingrey flinch in surprise. The porter’s shuffle and low voice sounded through the walls, the words blurred but the tone protesting. Ingrey’s teeth clamped in irritation at the untimely interruption. Now what?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

APERFUNCTORY RAP SHIVERED THE PARLOR DOOR, AND IT swung inward. The porter’s voice carried from the hall, '... no, Learned, you daren’t go in there! The wolf-lord ordered us not—'

Learned Lewko stepped around the frame and closed the door firmly on the porter’s panicked babble. He was dressed as Ingrey had glimpsed him earlier that morning, in the white robes of his order, cleaner and newer than what he’d worn in his dusty office but still unmarked with any rank. Unobtrusive: against the busy background of Templetown, surely nearly invisible. He was not exactly wheezing, but his face was flushed, as if he’d been walking quickly in the noon sun. He paused to reorder his robes and his breathing, his gaze on Ingrey and Ijada penetrating and disturbed.

'I am only a petty saint,' he said at last, signing himself, his touch lingering on his heart, 'but that was unmistakable.'

Ingrey moistened his lips. 'How many others there saw, do you know?'

'As far as I know, I was the only Sighted one present.' He tilted his head. 'Do you know any differently?'

Wencel. If there had been signs apparent to Lewko, Ingrey rather thought Wencel could not have been unaware. 'I’m not sure.'

Lewko wrinkled his nose in suspicion.

Ijada said tentatively, 'Ingrey... ?'

'Ah.' Ingrey jumped to his feet to perform introductions, grateful to take refuge for a moment in formality. 'Lady Ijada, this is Learned Lewko. I have, um... told you each something of the other. Learned, will you sit... ?' He offered the third chair. 'We expected you.'

'I fear I cannot say the same of you.' Lewko sighed and sank down, flapping one hand briefly to cool his face. 'In fact, you become more unexpected by the hour.'

Ingrey’s lips quirked up in brief appreciation as he sat again by Ijada. 'To myself as well. I did not know... I did not intend... What did you see? From your side?' He did not mean, from Lewko’s side of the chamber, but from the look on the divine’s face Ingrey had no need to explain that.

Lewko drew breath. 'When the animals were first presented at the prince’s bier, I feared an ambiguous outcome. We do try to avoid those; they are most distressing to the relatives. Disastrous, in this case. The groom- acolytes are normally under instruction to, ah, amplify their creature’s signs, for clarity. Amplify, mind you, not substitute or alter. I fear that this habit became misleading to some, and led to that attempt at fraud the day before yesterday. Or so our later inquiries revealed. None of the orders was pleased to learn that this was not the first time recently that some of our people let themselves be tempted by worldly bribes or threats. Such corruption feeds on its own success when it meets no correction.'

'Did they not fear their gods’ wrath?' asked Ijada.

'Even the wrath of the gods requires some human opportunity by which to manifest itself.' Lewko’s eye gauged Ingrey. 'As the wrath of the gods goes, your performance the other day was remarkably effective, Lord Ingrey. Never have I seen a conspiracy unravel itself and scramble to confession with such alacrity.'

'So happy to be of service,' Ingrey growled. He hesitated. 'This morning was the second time. The second god I’ve... crossed, in three days. The ice bear now seems a prelude—your god was there, within the accursed creature.'

'So He should be, for a funeral miracle, if it be a true one.'

'I heard a voice in my mind when I faced the bear.'

Lewko stiffened. 'What did it say? Can you remember exactly?'

'I can scarcely forget. I see my Brother’s pup is in better pelt, now. Good. Pray continue. And then the voice laughed.' Ingrey added irritably, 'It did not seem very helpful.' And more quietly, 'It frightened me. I now think I was not frightened enough.'

Lewko sat back, breathing out through pursed lips.

'Was it your god, in the bear? Do you think?' Ingrey prodded.

'Oh'—Lewko waved his hands—'to be sure. Signs of the Bastard’s holy presence tend to be unmistakable, to those who know Him. The screaming, the altercations, the people running in circles—all that was lacking was something bursting into flame, and I was not entirely sure for a moment you weren’t going to provide that, as well.' He added consolingly, 'The acolyte’s scorches should heal in a few days, though. He does not dare complain of his punishment.'

Ijada raised her brows.

Ingrey cleared his throat. 'It was not your god this morning, though.'

'No. Perhaps fortunately. Was it the Son of Autumn? I saw only a little stir by the wall when you collapsed, a felt Presence, and a flare like orange fire as the colt signed the body at last. Not,' he added, 'seen with my eyes, you know.'

'I know now,' sighed Ingrey. 'Ijada was there. In my vision.'

Lewko’s head whipped around.

'Let her tell of it,' Ingrey continued. 'It was her... it was her miracle, I think.' Not mine.

'You two shared this vision?' said Lewko in astonishment. 'Tell me!'

She nodded, stared a moment at Lewko as if determining to trust him, glanced again at Ingrey, and began: 'It came upon me by surprise. I was in my room upstairs, here. I felt odd and hot, and I felt myself sink to the floor. My warden thought I had fainted, and lifted me to my bed. The other time, at Red Dike, I was more aware of my body’s true surroundings, but this time... I was wholly in the vision. The first thing I saw was Ingrey, in his court dress—what he wears now, but I had never seen it before.' She paused, eyeing his garb as if about to add some other comment, but then shook her head and went on. 'His wolf ran at his heels. Great and dark, but so handsome! I was leashed by a chain of flowers to my leopard, and it pulled me forward. And then the god came from the trees... '

Her level voice recounted the events much as Ingrey had experienced them, if from another angle of view. Her voice shook a little as she quoted the god’s words. Verbatim, as nearly as Ingrey could recall—it seemed she shared the effect he’d felt, of speech that wrote itself across the mind in letters of everlasting fire. He looked away when many of his own graceless comments were quoted back at him as well, and set his teeth.

Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes as she finished, '... and Ingrey asked him what happens to the last shaman left, if there are none to deliver him, but the god did not say. It almost seemed as if He did not know.' She swallowed.

Lewko leaned his elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. 'Complications,' he