The Hallowed Hunt

the road right now, not more than a day behind me. I wonder if she will have brought the children? I shudder to picture it. If you see her, or her faithful servants, in this town before I do, tell her I have taken rooms for all of us at the Inn of Irises across from the Mother’s Infirmary.'

'Would, um, she be traveling with the same ones I met in Red Dike?'

'Oh, yes, Bernan and Hergi. They would not be separated from her. Bernan was one of her early triumphs in sorcerous healing, you see. Hergi brought him to her in agony from the stones, clawing himself and shrieking of suicide, close to heart failure from the pain, his life and sanity despaired of. Hallana exploded the stones within his body, and he passed them at once—she had him on his feet and smiling in a day. They would follow her into any folly she chose.' Oswin snorted. 'I construct the most excellent arguments in the Father’s name that my intellect and deep training can devise, yet with all my reason I cannot move people as she does just by—by standing there breathing. It is entirely unjust.' His tone tried to be incensed, but only managed wistful.

'The dream,' Ingrey reminded him.

'My apologies. I do not normally rattle on like this. Perhaps that explains something about my Hallana... I have laid it before Learned Lewko, now you. There were five people in it: Hallana, me, Lewko, and two young men I had never seen before. Until today. Prince Biast was one of them. I nearly fell off my bench when he walked into the chamber and was named. The other was a stranger fellow still; a giant man with long red hair, who spoke in tongues.'

'Ah,' said Ingrey. 'That would be Prince Jokol, no doubt. Tell him to give Fafa a fish for me, when you meet him. In fact, you might catch him now; I just sent him to Lewko. He could still be there.'

Oswin’s eyes widened, and he straightened as though to dash off at once, but then shook his head and continued. 'In the dream... I am a man of words, but I scarcely know how to describe it. All the five were god- touched. More, worse: the gods put us on and wore us like gauntlets. We shattered... '

They harry me hard, now, Horseriver had said. So it seemed. 'Well, should you determine what it all meant, let me know. Were any others in the dream?' Me or Ijada, for example?

Oswin shook his head. 'Just the five. So far. The dream did not seem finished, which upset me yet Hallana took in stride. I both long and fear to sleep, to find out more, but now I have insomnia. Hallana may be willing to run off into the dark, but I want to know where the stepping-stones will be.'

Ingrey smiled grimly at this. 'It was lately suggested to me, by a man with longer experience of the gods than I can rightly imagine, that the reason the gods do not show our paths more plainly is that They do not know either. I haven’t decided if I find this reassuring or the reverse. It does hint they do not torment us solely for Their amusement, at least.'

Oswin tapped a hand on the railing. 'Hallana and I have argued this point—the foresight of the gods. They are the gods. They must know if anyone does.'

'Perhaps no one does,' said Ingrey easily.

The expression on Oswin’s face was that of a man forced to swallow a vile-tasting medicine of dubious value. 'I shall try Lewko, then. Perhaps this Jokol will know something more.'

'I doubt it, but good luck.'

'I trust we will meet again soon.'

'Nothing would startle me, these days.'

'Where might I reach you? Lewko said you were set as a spy upon Earl Horseriver, who also seems somewhat involved in this tangle.'

Ingrey hissed through his teeth. 'I suppose it’s fortunate Horseriver already knows that I spy on him, with that sort of loose gossip circulating.'

Oswin shook his head vehemently. 'Neither loose nor gossip, and the circle is a tight one. Lewko had something like the dream, too, from what he says.'

Somewhat involved, indeed. 'Stay away from Horseriver for the time being. He is dangerous. If you wish to see me, send a message there, but put no matter of import in the writing—assume it will be intercepted and read by hostile eyes before I see it.'

Oswin nodded, frowning. They walked together down the circling stairs and out to the street. Ingrey bade the divine farewell and turned his quickening steps down the hill toward Kingstown.

CHAPTER TWENTY

INGREY COULD NOT MUSTER MUCH SURPRISE WHEN, AFTER crossing the buried creek into the lower city, he rounded a corner and found Hallana’s wagon blocking his path.

The two stubby horses, dusty and sweaty from the road, were standing hip-shot and bored, and Bernan sat on the driver’s box with reins slack and his elbows on his knees. A riding horse, unsaddled, was tied on behind the wagon by a rope to its halter. Hergi crouched behind Bernan’s shoulder. Hallana was hanging off the front brace of the canopy with one hand, shielding her gaze with the other, and peering dubiously up an alley too narrow for the wagon to enter.

Hergi pounded on Bernan’s shoulder, pointed at Ingrey, and cried, 'Look! Look!'

Hallana swung around, and her face brightened. 'Ah! Lord Ingrey! Excellent.' She gave Bernan a pat on the other shoulder. 'See, did I not say?' The smith gave a weary sort of head bob, halfway between agreement and exasperation, and Hallana stepped over him to hop down to the street and stand before Ingrey.

She had abandoned her loose and tattered robes for a natty traveling costume, a dark green coat upon a dress of pale linen, notably cinched in around the waist. Her shoulder braids were absent—traveling incognito? She remained short and plump, but trimmer, with her hair neatly braided in wreaths around her head. There were no visible signs of children or other trailing chaos.

Ingrey gave her a polite half bow; she returned a blessing, although her sign of the Five more resembled a vague check mark over her torso. 'So glad to see you,' she told him. 'I’m seeking Ijada.'

'How?' he couldn’t help asking. Presumably, she was once more in command of her powers.

'I usually just drive around until something happens.'

'That seems... oddly inefficient.'

'You sound like Oswin. He would have wanted to draw a grid over a chart of the city, and mark off sections in strict rotation. Finding you was much faster.'

Ingrey started to consider the logic of this, then thought better of it. 'Speaking of Learned Oswin. He told me to tell you he has taken rooms for you all at the Inn of the Irises, across from the Mother’s Infirmary on Temple Hill.'

A slight groan from Bernan greeted this news.

'Oh!' Hallana brightened still further. 'You have met, how nice!'

'You are not surprised to be expected?'

'Oswin can be terribly stodgy at times, but he’s not stupid. Of course he would realize we’d be coming. Eventually.'

'Learned Sir will not be pleased with us,' Hergi predicted uneasily. 'He wasn’t before.'

'Pish posh,' said Oswin’s spouse. 'You survived.' She turned back to Ingrey, and her voice dropped to seriousness. 'Did he tell you about our dream?'

'Just a little.'

'Where is Ijada, anyway?'

The passersby all seemed ordinary folk, so far, but Ingrey declined to take chances. 'I should not be seen talking to you, nor overheard.'

Hallana jerked her head toward the canopied wagon, and Ingrey nodded. He swung up after her into the shadowed interior, clambering over bundles and seating himself on a trunk, awkwardly adjusting his sword. Hallana